To paraphrase a saying in football circles; there are only two teams in the world, Man U and all the others; there are only two plays by Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest and all the rest. An Ideal Husband, Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance comprise the best of the rest and here Alexander Korda offers an ambitious production in which we have to make do with sumptuousness and forfeit quality. The four plays cited have the good fortune to be set both in the 1890s and High society, a gift for both set designers and costumiers in the theatre magnified tenfold when theatre is adapted for cinema. The opening scene clearly influenced Vincente Minnelli when he came to shoot Gigi whilst Cecil Beaton merely replicated his designs in both Gigi and My Fair Lady. This leaves the plot - and only Earnest is pure comedy, all the other Wilde plays contrived to offer, albeit concealed, moral messages - a bad nowhere and tending to be hampered by the actors, Michael Wilding in particular, rushing through the epigrams as if ridding the mouth of the taste of Castor Oil.
Review of An Ideal Husband
