"Separate Tables" (1958) is a movie that I'd been wanting to see for many years, and it was worth the wait. A "Grand Hotel"-type of story that takes place at a quaint English inn by the sea, it features any number of interesting characters, marvelously depicted by a host of great talents. Thus, we get a love triangle between Burt Lancaster, his ex-wife Rita Hayworth (40 years old in this film and still looking very pulchritudinous) and the charming hotel owner Wendy Hiller, who really did earn her Best Supporting Actress Oscar here. We meet the repressed mess of a spinster played by Deborah Kerr, as well as her impossibly overbearing mother (Gladys Cooper, doing here what she did to Bette Davis in 1942's "Now, Voyager"). We get to know retired Army major David Niven, and learn his dark secrets. (Niven, too, earned his Oscar for this fine portrayal; he also costarred with Kerr in another 1958 film, "Bonjour Tristesse.") And finally, we encounter a pair of young lovers, Rod Taylor and the yummy Audrey Dalton, who can't decide if they should marry or not. Many dramatic encounters abound (some of them sexually frank for 1958), and Hayworth's mature and adult performance might come as the pleasantest surprise of the bunch. Personally, I would say that big Burt picks the wrong gal to go off with at the film's conclusion, but I suppose that this is a matter of personal taste. The bottom line here is that this classic film is a wonderful treat for viewers who appreciate good screen writing and who relish deliciously served acting by a bunch of real pros. And this nice, crisp-looking DVD only adds to the pleasure. So do yourself a favor and check into the Beauregard Hotel!
96 Reviews
Intriguing and well-written drama
FilmOtaku11 April 2004
This film came highly recommended to me by my parents, so I was anxious to watch it. Again, I realized that my impression of Burt Lancaster is completely different from what he actually is as an actor. His portrayal of an alcoholic man who gets a visit from his ex-wife (Hayworth) at the hotel he resides is again different from the boisterous, oafish guy that I always believed him to be when I was younger. Also at the hotel are a varied group of characters including an oppressive woman who lords over her timid spinster daughter (Kerr) and a retired Army officer with some secrets, (Niven) who are all taken care of by the distant, yet sincere proprietress, Pat Cooper (the amazing Wendy Hiller). The film encompasses all of their separate plot lines, and interweaves them gradually until the climatic ending. There was no action in this film, just wonderful, straight melodrama and some great writing and acting. A year later, Lancaster and Hecht, the producers behind this film, went on to produce `Sweet Smell of Success', which is infinitely more searing and dark, but it was interesting to see the precursor to that film. I recommend this film for anyone who appreciates solid classic melodramas.
--Shelly
--Shelly
Loneliness, Secrets and Revelations in a Hotel in Bournemouth
claudio_carvalho12 August 2012
In Bournemouth, England, the Beauregard Hotel is located three minutes from the sea and managed by Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). It is off-season and only the resident guests are lodged in the hotel.
The timid Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) is a spinster and hysterical woman totally controlled by her arrogant and snobbish mother Mrs. Maud Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) that does not want that she works. Sybil is secretly in love with the reformed Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) and she enjoys listening to his stories about his life. Lady Gladys Matheson (Gladys Cooper) is the only friend of Mrs. Railton-Bell. The medical student Charles (Rod Taylor) wants to marry his fiancée Jean (Audrey Dalton) but she refuses. Miss Meacham (May Hallatt) and Mr. Fowler (Felix Aylmer) like to play billiards and she always wins the game. The American John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is an alcoholic writer that is secretly engaged of Pat.
When the elegant and gorgeous Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) checks in the hotel, John is affected by her presence and Pat learns that Ann is his ex-wife that he had tried to kill five years ago. Meanwhile Major Pollock unsuccessfully tries to steal the newspaper West Hampshire Weekly News from the reception. However, Mrs. Railton-Bell arrives and finds an infamous article about him and she tries to expel him from the hotel. These events will affect the lives of the residents.
"Separated Tables" is a film based on a play with a story of loneliness, secrets and revelations in a hotel in Bournemouth. The theatrical plot is developed in slow pace inside the hotel and the lives of the lonely guests are entwined with the arrival of a beautiful woman and the discovery of a secret about the behavior of one guest, changing the relationship of them.
This film won the Oscars of Best Actor in a Leading Role (David Niven) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Wendy Hiller), and was nominated to five other Oscars (Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr); Best Cinematography in Black-and-White; Best Music Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture; Best Picture; and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium). In addition, "Separated Tables" has another five wins and seven nominations. The number of prizes (7) and nominations (12) is the best indication of how great this film is. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Vidas Separadas" ("Separated Lives")
The timid Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) is a spinster and hysterical woman totally controlled by her arrogant and snobbish mother Mrs. Maud Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) that does not want that she works. Sybil is secretly in love with the reformed Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) and she enjoys listening to his stories about his life. Lady Gladys Matheson (Gladys Cooper) is the only friend of Mrs. Railton-Bell. The medical student Charles (Rod Taylor) wants to marry his fiancée Jean (Audrey Dalton) but she refuses. Miss Meacham (May Hallatt) and Mr. Fowler (Felix Aylmer) like to play billiards and she always wins the game. The American John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is an alcoholic writer that is secretly engaged of Pat.
When the elegant and gorgeous Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) checks in the hotel, John is affected by her presence and Pat learns that Ann is his ex-wife that he had tried to kill five years ago. Meanwhile Major Pollock unsuccessfully tries to steal the newspaper West Hampshire Weekly News from the reception. However, Mrs. Railton-Bell arrives and finds an infamous article about him and she tries to expel him from the hotel. These events will affect the lives of the residents.
"Separated Tables" is a film based on a play with a story of loneliness, secrets and revelations in a hotel in Bournemouth. The theatrical plot is developed in slow pace inside the hotel and the lives of the lonely guests are entwined with the arrival of a beautiful woman and the discovery of a secret about the behavior of one guest, changing the relationship of them.
This film won the Oscars of Best Actor in a Leading Role (David Niven) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Wendy Hiller), and was nominated to five other Oscars (Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr); Best Cinematography in Black-and-White; Best Music Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture; Best Picture; and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium). In addition, "Separated Tables" has another five wins and seven nominations. The number of prizes (7) and nominations (12) is the best indication of how great this film is. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Vidas Separadas" ("Separated Lives")
Comfort Film
martindonovanitaly27 February 2018
I don't know why, sometimes I think it may have to do with previous lives, otherwise why do I feel so comfortable within the discomforts of this English seaside hotel. But the fact is that, often, I want to put it on and sit at one of the tables myself. I believe that Terence Rattigan is the main reason. What a wonderful writer. Then, Gladys Cooper of course, how can such a perfidious mother be such a pleasure to watch? Maybe is that explosive combination of Rattigan/Cooper. Wendy Hiller in one of her few meaty roles in movies, she won an Oscar for it and every nuance, every look is worth pages and pages of exposition. Exquisite. Cathleen Nesbitt is a joy to behold. Deborah Kerr,
David Niven who also won the Oscar for his sad impostor, Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth bring a dash of Hollywood to the grayness of Bournemouth. Okay, now, dinner is served. Don't let it get cold.
What a pity most of today's cinemagoers will never see this very moving film
yorky7 January 1999
This is without doubt one of the best films I have ever seen. The fact that it all takes place in one small Bournemouth (England) hotel, no violence, no special effects, no thousands of extras, or vast expenditure says it all. Excellent performances from a star studded cast, especially David Niven. It is gripping from start to finish, but by modern standards in a gentle way. A movie possibly mainly for women, but as a man I can only say that I found it very moving. A film I will always watch whenever it comes around as it always will. A classic.
If you like human nature you'll love this movie.
braggs12313 February 2007
I enjoyed this movie immensely. I went back and watched parts of it over because it was done so well.
The actors show the greatness and degradation of human nature under the duress of great personal obstacles and non-ideal circumstances.
Burt Lancaster is both bold and vulnerable, directly honest and compassionately understanding.
One person exhibits unsurpassed understanding with unselfish love. To me, this is a love story on many levels; manipulative love, selfish, lonely love, the love of people's opinion, love battling fear and finally... well, you need to watch it and see.
The actors show the greatness and degradation of human nature under the duress of great personal obstacles and non-ideal circumstances.
Burt Lancaster is both bold and vulnerable, directly honest and compassionately understanding.
One person exhibits unsurpassed understanding with unselfish love. To me, this is a love story on many levels; manipulative love, selfish, lonely love, the love of people's opinion, love battling fear and finally... well, you need to watch it and see.
great cast
SnoopyStyle24 October 2018
It's the off season for Hotel Beauregard at a seaside English town of Bournemouth run by Pat Cooper. She's having a secret fling with alcoholic John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster). He's surprised by the new guest, his estranged ex-wife Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) who left him 5 years ago. Long time resident Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) tries to hide unsavory allegations against him in the papers. After it comes out, Mrs Railton-Bell leads the drive to expel him although her spinster daughter Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) is taken with Pollock.
The cast is stacked and this movie was a heavy hitting during its Oscars. I would have liked Mrs Railton-Bell to be more likeable. It's obvious what the movie is pushing the audience towards. Whatever the arrogant broad advocates, it is the wrong way. I want a real conflict between two equally reasonable sides. If the same story comes out today, there would be more weight on her side. A real debate could be more compelling. This is a generally good old style melodrama. Hayworth's acting has never been her biggest assets. Lancaster is tapping into his great acting powers. The rest are all great actors doing solid work in their characters. This may not have aged into an iconic classic but its quality is never in doubt.
The cast is stacked and this movie was a heavy hitting during its Oscars. I would have liked Mrs Railton-Bell to be more likeable. It's obvious what the movie is pushing the audience towards. Whatever the arrogant broad advocates, it is the wrong way. I want a real conflict between two equally reasonable sides. If the same story comes out today, there would be more weight on her side. A real debate could be more compelling. This is a generally good old style melodrama. Hayworth's acting has never been her biggest assets. Lancaster is tapping into his great acting powers. The rest are all great actors doing solid work in their characters. This may not have aged into an iconic classic but its quality is never in doubt.
Stitched Together Rather Nicely
bkoganbing8 April 2006
Warning: Spoilers
As presented in London and on Broadway Separate Tables was two one act plays set in a residential hotel in the seaside resort of Bournemouth. The stories involving Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth and the one involving David Niven and Deborah Kerr were presented separately. Fortunately producers Burt Lancaster, Harold Hecht, and James Hill had the good sense to hire Terrence Ratigan to stitch the two acts together into one well done coherent drama. Came out rather nicely.
Burt and Rita's story involve a former married couple who's volatile personalities make it impossible for them to live together and their sexual attraction makes it impossible for them to function without. Lancaster is a working class writer and Hayworth is a chic fashion model. Different temperaments and different worlds. Lancaster in fact is now engaged to Wendy Hiller, the proprietress of the hotel everyone is staying at.
Deborah Kerr is the shy and plain daughter of a domineering Gladys Cooper who is essentially playing the same role she did in Now Voyager. Kerr is attracted to the hale and hearty Major played by David Niven. But Niven is not all he claims to be. He's not a major from Montgomery's Eighth Army, but rather a former lowly supply lieutenant who never saw any combat. And he's got a sexual problem in that he likes to molest women in dark places like movie theaters. In fact he was arrested for it in a nearby town and is panic stricken that the rest of the residents will find out and see through him.
The Major is one of Terrence Rattigan's most personal creations. Rattigan was a gay man living in the pre-Stonewall era when such topics were not talked about. Noel Coward was about as explicit as one could get in British society. The Major was a man playing a role in his whole life and gay people before Stonewall did just that, presenting a facade to the world at large. If Separate Tables were written today, I've no doubt David Niven's character would be explicitly gay.
David Niven had one of the strangest careers in Hollywood. He was a man of acting ability this film certainly proves it. But producers always looked no farther than him as a debonair charming leading man. He carried a host of mediocre films by dint of charm. Separate Tables is one of the few films where he really does create a three dimensional human being.
David Niven was also one of the most popular individuals in Hollywood. As charming in real life as he was on the screen, he was a great raconteur with a host of stories that kept everyone at gatherings entertained. His friends included people of all political persuasions from Humphrey Bogart to William F. Buckley, Jr. That and the fact that Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier split the vote being both nominated for The Defiant Ones got David Niven the Best Actor Oscar in the only time he was ever nominated.
Ironically though the Oscar really did nothing for his career. He went right back to playing the same charming lightweight roles for the most part the rest of his life.
Wendy Hiller got an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category. Her's is a subtle understated performance. She's a wise and compassionate woman that Wendy. In love with Burt Lancaster she sees what her duty is in that relationship and she's ready to be a friend to David Niven when Gladys Cooper wants him expelled from the hotel.
What a pity Deborah Kerr never won an Oscar other than an honorary one in the Nineties as a lifetime achievement. Her role as Sybil is about as different from Anna Leonowens in The King and I as from the sluttish Mrs. Holmes in From Here to Eternity. Typecast as prim and proper ladies at first, a backup to Greer Garson at MGM, Kerr broke out with an astonishing range of parts in the Fifties. She never gets the credit due her.
Intelligent and literate, Separate Tables is old fashioned considering the times it was written in. But the characters absorb you in their problems and you leave it with the fervent wish that they all find some healing together or apart.
Burt and Rita's story involve a former married couple who's volatile personalities make it impossible for them to live together and their sexual attraction makes it impossible for them to function without. Lancaster is a working class writer and Hayworth is a chic fashion model. Different temperaments and different worlds. Lancaster in fact is now engaged to Wendy Hiller, the proprietress of the hotel everyone is staying at.
Deborah Kerr is the shy and plain daughter of a domineering Gladys Cooper who is essentially playing the same role she did in Now Voyager. Kerr is attracted to the hale and hearty Major played by David Niven. But Niven is not all he claims to be. He's not a major from Montgomery's Eighth Army, but rather a former lowly supply lieutenant who never saw any combat. And he's got a sexual problem in that he likes to molest women in dark places like movie theaters. In fact he was arrested for it in a nearby town and is panic stricken that the rest of the residents will find out and see through him.
The Major is one of Terrence Rattigan's most personal creations. Rattigan was a gay man living in the pre-Stonewall era when such topics were not talked about. Noel Coward was about as explicit as one could get in British society. The Major was a man playing a role in his whole life and gay people before Stonewall did just that, presenting a facade to the world at large. If Separate Tables were written today, I've no doubt David Niven's character would be explicitly gay.
David Niven had one of the strangest careers in Hollywood. He was a man of acting ability this film certainly proves it. But producers always looked no farther than him as a debonair charming leading man. He carried a host of mediocre films by dint of charm. Separate Tables is one of the few films where he really does create a three dimensional human being.
David Niven was also one of the most popular individuals in Hollywood. As charming in real life as he was on the screen, he was a great raconteur with a host of stories that kept everyone at gatherings entertained. His friends included people of all political persuasions from Humphrey Bogart to William F. Buckley, Jr. That and the fact that Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier split the vote being both nominated for The Defiant Ones got David Niven the Best Actor Oscar in the only time he was ever nominated.
Ironically though the Oscar really did nothing for his career. He went right back to playing the same charming lightweight roles for the most part the rest of his life.
Wendy Hiller got an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category. Her's is a subtle understated performance. She's a wise and compassionate woman that Wendy. In love with Burt Lancaster she sees what her duty is in that relationship and she's ready to be a friend to David Niven when Gladys Cooper wants him expelled from the hotel.
What a pity Deborah Kerr never won an Oscar other than an honorary one in the Nineties as a lifetime achievement. Her role as Sybil is about as different from Anna Leonowens in The King and I as from the sluttish Mrs. Holmes in From Here to Eternity. Typecast as prim and proper ladies at first, a backup to Greer Garson at MGM, Kerr broke out with an astonishing range of parts in the Fifties. She never gets the credit due her.
Intelligent and literate, Separate Tables is old fashioned considering the times it was written in. But the characters absorb you in their problems and you leave it with the fervent wish that they all find some healing together or apart.
Screenplay's Architecture Dominates Even Strong Cast
Danusha_Goska28 June 2005
"Separate Tables" dramatizes several life-changing moments in the lives of characters living in a seaside hotel in England in the late 1950s.
These moments focus on sex -- lots of sex, actually -- drinking, class conflict, and career concerns.
The cast is one of the very best that any movie has ever been blessed with. Each star -- and this is an all-star cast -- is pitch perfect.
The black and white cinematography of the hotel's Victorian interior, and each character, is gorgeous. If you like seeing beautiful images on screen, you may enjoy this film for that reason alone.
For me, the problem was the overbearing nature of the screenplay.
Terence Rattigan, the playwright of the stage play on which the movie was based, was a practitioner of the "well made play." In the 1950s in England, new approaches to drama revolutionized the stage. Big Issues were being presented with New Frankness.
Rattigan adopted some of the subject matter and new freedom of this revolution.
So, you have a well made play that's trying to say something socially daring and important.
The problem for me was that the architecture of the screenplay became the most obvious focus on screen -- not Burt Lancaster's great passion, not Rita Hayworth's seductive beauty, not David Niven or Deborah Kerr's pathos.
Characters speak in full paragraphs, with complete punctuation. Characters who are supposed to be in thrall to great passions and confusions are able to deliver unbelievably well-crafted one-liners that sum up decades worth of life history.
At a point when he is supposed to be being driven mad by passion, Burt Lancaster, portraying a working class, drunken writer, delivers a precise summary of the class and sexual issues at play in his relationship to Rita Hayworth, an upper class fashion model and sexual tease.
Since this style of drama is out of fashion now, its intense stylization interfered with my suspension of disbelief. Lancaster's comments sound as incongruous as a chemistry lecture.
The movie does deliver some genuinely touching moments. Wendy Hiller is never less than fantastic. She's utterly believable as an admirable, self-reliant woman.
Deborah Kerr brought tears to my eyes, in spite of the humorous incongruity of seeing her and Lancaster together on screen here after their famous beach scene in "From Here to Eternity." David Niven was also quite poignant.
May Hallat, as the vaguely lesbian Miss Meacham, was a delightful hoot.
"Separate Tables" is a fascinating film in its depiction of women. The female characters are all paired, with one "good" and one "bad" version of each.
There are two young women, two working women, two older women -- one young woman is twisted (Deborah Kerr), the other is healthy (Rod Taylor's fiancée). There is one mean old lady (Gladys Cooper, who did the mean old lady so very well), and one nice old lady (Cathleen Nesbitt). There is a woman who has gotten through her life on her looks (Rita Hayworth) and one who has gotten through life on her hard work (Wendy Hiller).
These moments focus on sex -- lots of sex, actually -- drinking, class conflict, and career concerns.
The cast is one of the very best that any movie has ever been blessed with. Each star -- and this is an all-star cast -- is pitch perfect.
The black and white cinematography of the hotel's Victorian interior, and each character, is gorgeous. If you like seeing beautiful images on screen, you may enjoy this film for that reason alone.
For me, the problem was the overbearing nature of the screenplay.
Terence Rattigan, the playwright of the stage play on which the movie was based, was a practitioner of the "well made play." In the 1950s in England, new approaches to drama revolutionized the stage. Big Issues were being presented with New Frankness.
Rattigan adopted some of the subject matter and new freedom of this revolution.
So, you have a well made play that's trying to say something socially daring and important.
The problem for me was that the architecture of the screenplay became the most obvious focus on screen -- not Burt Lancaster's great passion, not Rita Hayworth's seductive beauty, not David Niven or Deborah Kerr's pathos.
Characters speak in full paragraphs, with complete punctuation. Characters who are supposed to be in thrall to great passions and confusions are able to deliver unbelievably well-crafted one-liners that sum up decades worth of life history.
At a point when he is supposed to be being driven mad by passion, Burt Lancaster, portraying a working class, drunken writer, delivers a precise summary of the class and sexual issues at play in his relationship to Rita Hayworth, an upper class fashion model and sexual tease.
Since this style of drama is out of fashion now, its intense stylization interfered with my suspension of disbelief. Lancaster's comments sound as incongruous as a chemistry lecture.
The movie does deliver some genuinely touching moments. Wendy Hiller is never less than fantastic. She's utterly believable as an admirable, self-reliant woman.
Deborah Kerr brought tears to my eyes, in spite of the humorous incongruity of seeing her and Lancaster together on screen here after their famous beach scene in "From Here to Eternity." David Niven was also quite poignant.
May Hallat, as the vaguely lesbian Miss Meacham, was a delightful hoot.
"Separate Tables" is a fascinating film in its depiction of women. The female characters are all paired, with one "good" and one "bad" version of each.
There are two young women, two working women, two older women -- one young woman is twisted (Deborah Kerr), the other is healthy (Rod Taylor's fiancée). There is one mean old lady (Gladys Cooper, who did the mean old lady so very well), and one nice old lady (Cathleen Nesbitt). There is a woman who has gotten through her life on her looks (Rita Hayworth) and one who has gotten through life on her hard work (Wendy Hiller).
A Skillful Blending of Two One Act Plays
theowinthrop9 April 2006
I visited London in 1993, and saw a west end revival of Terrance Rattigan's "Separate Tables" that starred Peter Bowles. It was very odd watching Bowles, whom I have seen playing so many upper crust comic types as in "The Irish R.M." on television, here playing two serious parts: a recovering alcoholic who meets his ex-wife at a hotel he is staying at, and a bluff, good natured military man who disgraces himself - and is facing ostracism as a result - in the same hotel. But these were separate plays, and each well done. Rattigan was a master (possibly the last one) of the "well made play" that Shaw condemned as artificial and fake. The "well made play" Bernard Shaw talked about was the type championed by the French dramatists Planche and Victorien Sardou. Structurally they were perfect, with the concentration on plot mechanism so strong as to diminish everything else. Shaw felt the play should say something. He failed to admit that some of his own plays (among his early ones) like "Caesar And Cleopatra" and "Arms And The Man" were "well made plays", with his own wit added. He also failed to notice that in the hands of a good dramatist (like Rattigan) a well made play could be very strong: "The Winslow Boy", "The Browning Version", "Separate Tables" - the credits prove the point.
As has been pointed out in another of these reviews Rattigan rewrote the plays as one play. This was not too difficult, as the only character in the two who was the same was the hotel manager (Wendy Hiller). Her part was built up a little (in the original she is a close friend of the Burt Lancaster character - here they have a relationship). Frequently people recall David Niven's dramatic triumph and Oscar in "Separate Tables" as the disgraced military man, but Hiller won her best supporting Oscar here (she did not win it for her lead performances in "Pygmalion", "Major Barbara", or "I Know Where I'm Going"). She deserved it, as a woman who sadly sees her chance for happiness swept away, but pulls herself together because she is a grown-up with responsibilities.
Lancaster and Rita Hayworth were formerly married (he a rising Labor Party politician, she a wealthy woman) only to find the tensions of his political career and their tempestuous relationship led to an act of violence that ended the marriage. But Hayworth finds she can't live without Lancaster, and he is willing to consider it again - as their play continues. Will they do it or not?
Niven is a bluff, hail-fellow-well-met type, who claims he was a Major in the army. He happens to be very close to Deborah Kerr, the daughter of autocratic Gladys Cooper. Kerr is quite brow-beaten, but Niven encourages her to try to think for herself. Then it turns out he has committed a sin - he broke the law by performing a dirty act, and was caught. Cooper, who hates anyone who stands up against her, learns of it, and uses it to cause Kerr to break with Niven, and to then try to get the hotel to force him out. Will she succeed or not?
Niven played his role with a degree of regret and humiliation rarely seen by his fans in three decades of film comedies. I have mentioned that he had a dark side, but this was one of the few times it was given full strength. It was worth waiting for, as he was superb.
So too were Hayworth, Kerr, Cooper, and the supporting cast. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton were good as the young married couple. But typically good was old Felix Aylmer. As the mild mannered professor who is willing to listen to Cooper's arguments about the need to get rid of that "pervert" for the sake of the hotel's reputation, and then gradually gets fed up with her self-righteous egotism until he starts leading a reaction against it he gave a terrific performance. He too deserved some recognition, but only his fans can give it to him now.
As has been pointed out in another of these reviews Rattigan rewrote the plays as one play. This was not too difficult, as the only character in the two who was the same was the hotel manager (Wendy Hiller). Her part was built up a little (in the original she is a close friend of the Burt Lancaster character - here they have a relationship). Frequently people recall David Niven's dramatic triumph and Oscar in "Separate Tables" as the disgraced military man, but Hiller won her best supporting Oscar here (she did not win it for her lead performances in "Pygmalion", "Major Barbara", or "I Know Where I'm Going"). She deserved it, as a woman who sadly sees her chance for happiness swept away, but pulls herself together because she is a grown-up with responsibilities.
Lancaster and Rita Hayworth were formerly married (he a rising Labor Party politician, she a wealthy woman) only to find the tensions of his political career and their tempestuous relationship led to an act of violence that ended the marriage. But Hayworth finds she can't live without Lancaster, and he is willing to consider it again - as their play continues. Will they do it or not?
Niven is a bluff, hail-fellow-well-met type, who claims he was a Major in the army. He happens to be very close to Deborah Kerr, the daughter of autocratic Gladys Cooper. Kerr is quite brow-beaten, but Niven encourages her to try to think for herself. Then it turns out he has committed a sin - he broke the law by performing a dirty act, and was caught. Cooper, who hates anyone who stands up against her, learns of it, and uses it to cause Kerr to break with Niven, and to then try to get the hotel to force him out. Will she succeed or not?
Niven played his role with a degree of regret and humiliation rarely seen by his fans in three decades of film comedies. I have mentioned that he had a dark side, but this was one of the few times it was given full strength. It was worth waiting for, as he was superb.
So too were Hayworth, Kerr, Cooper, and the supporting cast. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton were good as the young married couple. But typically good was old Felix Aylmer. As the mild mannered professor who is willing to listen to Cooper's arguments about the need to get rid of that "pervert" for the sake of the hotel's reputation, and then gradually gets fed up with her self-righteous egotism until he starts leading a reaction against it he gave a terrific performance. He too deserved some recognition, but only his fans can give it to him now.
typically classy, but stolid theatrical adaptation redeemed by some fine acting
OldAle125 July 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I knew that this was an adaptation of a play going in, and seeing Delbert Mann's name made it all the clearer that this was going go be one of those "classy" American films of the 50s about a "serious" subject that got a bunch of award nominations but appears stodgy and dull now. And I was more or less right in my assumption.
The characters for the most part struck me as one-note. It doesn't surprise me really that Deborah Kerr was nominated for playing the repressed, borderline hysterical browbeaten spinster daughter who forms a devotion to the (Oscar-winning) David Niven's exaggerated British military character - Kerr's role is the flashiest, along with Niven's, and the least interesting I think. I really did like Wendy Hiller as the hotel's manager - she brought real warmth and empathy to this rather understated role and she, too, won an Oscar for it - this one well-deserved I think. There's so much emotion there in the scene where she's telling the American writer who she loves (Burt Lancaster) that he needs to go to his ex-wife (Rita Hayworth, in maybe the best performance I've seen from her) because she needs him, needs him far more than the lonely but basically accepting hotelier.
Hayworth and Hiller bring this up to some extent from its dull, stagy direction and the rather obvious and predictable direction the characters are moving in, and the last scene with all the main characters gathered in the dining room as Kerr finally breaks (if only for a moment) from her domineering mother is also fairly powerful, so on the whole I can recommend this though I think you'd probably have to be a fan of some of the actors here to really get into it.
The characters for the most part struck me as one-note. It doesn't surprise me really that Deborah Kerr was nominated for playing the repressed, borderline hysterical browbeaten spinster daughter who forms a devotion to the (Oscar-winning) David Niven's exaggerated British military character - Kerr's role is the flashiest, along with Niven's, and the least interesting I think. I really did like Wendy Hiller as the hotel's manager - she brought real warmth and empathy to this rather understated role and she, too, won an Oscar for it - this one well-deserved I think. There's so much emotion there in the scene where she's telling the American writer who she loves (Burt Lancaster) that he needs to go to his ex-wife (Rita Hayworth, in maybe the best performance I've seen from her) because she needs him, needs him far more than the lonely but basically accepting hotelier.
Hayworth and Hiller bring this up to some extent from its dull, stagy direction and the rather obvious and predictable direction the characters are moving in, and the last scene with all the main characters gathered in the dining room as Kerr finally breaks (if only for a moment) from her domineering mother is also fairly powerful, so on the whole I can recommend this though I think you'd probably have to be a fan of some of the actors here to really get into it.
This is now my favorite movie
deexsocalygal6 August 2020
It's 2020 I'm 59 & I just finished watching this for the first time. I immediately had to watch it over again it was so good. This is one of those movies that you'll want to see over & over. The acting was superb. I was so touched by the personalities dynamics of every single character in this film. My favorite genre is drama & I prefer black and white so this was right up my alley. At the end I held my breath & when The End came up on the screen I started crying. I had to watch the whole thing a second time & I will be purchasing the DVD for sure. There wasn't a boring moment and the ending was the best part. I wish there was a sequel! I would of loved to of seen the Major and the shy gal get together slowly as they talk and share moments at the hotel. It would have made a great romance!
A Movie as Good as a Play
Pat-1595 November 1999
I found "Separate Tables" in the library - I had never heard of it before. It's a good movie and has some intriguing moments, mostly when Burt Lancaster is in the scene. This movie obviously came from a well-written stage play and the director maintained the "interior" feeling throughout.
Something I really liked about the movie was it's willingness to portray real human weaknesses that the characters may never be able to overcome. I also liked to see the group dynamics and the characters' willingness or lack or willingness to judge each other.
I highly recommend other movieholics to try to find this video at the video rental store. I just haven't decided whether to buy a copy for myself.
Something I really liked about the movie was it's willingness to portray real human weaknesses that the characters may never be able to overcome. I also liked to see the group dynamics and the characters' willingness or lack or willingness to judge each other.
I highly recommend other movieholics to try to find this video at the video rental store. I just haven't decided whether to buy a copy for myself.
Twelve Characters in Search of a Movie
rpvanderlinden5 February 2011
I was attracted to this movie by the actors, most of whom invoke fond memories and iconic performances. Deborah Kerr and David Niven, in particular, go out on a limb and play against type. The motley collection of thespians in this film are cocooned mostly in the interior of a little seaside hotel, mostly in the drawing and dining rooms and performing an adaptation of Terence Rattigan plays. It has been said that no man - or woman - is an island, but in this movie all the characters are islands, sitting, as they do, at separate tables in the dining room. It's a safe and non-intrusive arrangement - or is it? Join someone else at their table and the bees start buzzing. (I have also just seen another movie with a similar set-up - the main story in the enjoyable British drama "Trio").
Deborah Kerr is barely recognizable as a mousy, neurotic wallflower who fades into the scenery pretty quickly and stays there. She is attracted to David Niven's bombastic ex-military type with the preened moustache who ends his conversations with "cheery-bye". He hides a secret - he's really a repressed nobody. Rita Hayworth is a shrew. She's either really nice or really awful - when she's really awful her speech becomes clipped. Burt Lancaster is her ex, an alcoholic writer who has a thing for the hotel's owner (Wendy Hiller). Rod Taylor is on hand in a sub-plot that barely registers. Gladys Cooper, as Kerr's mom, a pinched old prude, is the most fun. All of the characters elicit some sympathy and all of the acting is perfectly respectable, yet even with so much talent on hand, the movie seems rather ordinary. There are only intermittent sparks, even in the Hayworth/Lancaster rocky love story. It has little vigour and the melodrama seems subdued. When Kerr finally defies her mother the earth should have shook; instead there was a momentary blip on the dramatic scale.
"Separate Tables" suffers badly from "television-itis". It looks and feels like a well-dressed television studio production from the 1950's. Even some of the camera and dolly movements and Delbert Mann's awkward transitions between scenes reek of television (was the movie originally intended for the tube?). Had the original material been opened up and filmed on location with real exteriors maybe the fresh morning breeze would have cleared the air. As it is, the movie feels a little muffled and quaint.
Deborah Kerr is barely recognizable as a mousy, neurotic wallflower who fades into the scenery pretty quickly and stays there. She is attracted to David Niven's bombastic ex-military type with the preened moustache who ends his conversations with "cheery-bye". He hides a secret - he's really a repressed nobody. Rita Hayworth is a shrew. She's either really nice or really awful - when she's really awful her speech becomes clipped. Burt Lancaster is her ex, an alcoholic writer who has a thing for the hotel's owner (Wendy Hiller). Rod Taylor is on hand in a sub-plot that barely registers. Gladys Cooper, as Kerr's mom, a pinched old prude, is the most fun. All of the characters elicit some sympathy and all of the acting is perfectly respectable, yet even with so much talent on hand, the movie seems rather ordinary. There are only intermittent sparks, even in the Hayworth/Lancaster rocky love story. It has little vigour and the melodrama seems subdued. When Kerr finally defies her mother the earth should have shook; instead there was a momentary blip on the dramatic scale.
"Separate Tables" suffers badly from "television-itis". It looks and feels like a well-dressed television studio production from the 1950's. Even some of the camera and dolly movements and Delbert Mann's awkward transitions between scenes reek of television (was the movie originally intended for the tube?). Had the original material been opened up and filmed on location with real exteriors maybe the fresh morning breeze would have cleared the air. As it is, the movie feels a little muffled and quaint.
Fascinating character studies at a seaside hotel...
Doylenf16 May 2002
Deborah Kerr and David Niven give stunning performances in this interesting character study of residents of a British seaside hotel forced to examine their feelings and emotions through the revelation of a scandal involving a blustery phony Major Pollock (David Niven. His relationship with the repressed daughter (Deborah Kerr) of a domineering mother (Gladys Cooper) is just one of the interesting aspects of this filming of Terrence Rattigan's stage play.
Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster are excellent as ex-lovers forced to examine their pasts. Wendy Hill excels as the keeper of the hotel, herself involved in an affair with Lancaster. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton do well as the young lovers caught in the claustrophobic setting dominated by snooping elderly women.
A very worthwhile, sensitive study of people trying to spend quiet days at a resort--very disparate people leading separate lives who must cope with their differences.
Deborah Kerr gives a deeply felt, genuinely moving performance opposite Niven's blustery major and Cooper's exquisitely well-mannered but narrow-minded mother. Niven deserved his Oscar for his moments of quiet desperation and crumbling of character--but Kerr is equally fine and should have had Academy recognition for this role instead of just a nomination.
Wendy Hiller is especially impressive and surely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the innkeeper who deals intelligently and sympathetically with the various crises facing her guests. She is a pleasure to watch as she struggles to keep her guests comfortable under trying circumstances.
Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster are excellent as ex-lovers forced to examine their pasts. Wendy Hill excels as the keeper of the hotel, herself involved in an affair with Lancaster. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton do well as the young lovers caught in the claustrophobic setting dominated by snooping elderly women.
A very worthwhile, sensitive study of people trying to spend quiet days at a resort--very disparate people leading separate lives who must cope with their differences.
Deborah Kerr gives a deeply felt, genuinely moving performance opposite Niven's blustery major and Cooper's exquisitely well-mannered but narrow-minded mother. Niven deserved his Oscar for his moments of quiet desperation and crumbling of character--but Kerr is equally fine and should have had Academy recognition for this role instead of just a nomination.
Wendy Hiller is especially impressive and surely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the innkeeper who deals intelligently and sympathetically with the various crises facing her guests. She is a pleasure to watch as she struggles to keep her guests comfortable under trying circumstances.
A Classic to Rival 'Close Encounter'
robert-temple-113 October 2009
I have just seen this for the third time, and it gets better every time. What anyone under the age of 30 would make of it, I cannot imagine. But for people old enough to remember having met or known people like the characters in this film (which is also a classic play by Terence Rattigan, revived from time to time on stage), this is a harrowing, searing examination of the interior recesses of fossilised people in a formal society of manners such as England was before the 1960s. The play/film is set in a seaside hotel at Bournemouth in England in the 1950s. It is peopled by lonely, stiff upper lip people who sit at separate tables in the communal dining room. The performances by numerous famous actors are absolutely staggering. David Niven gives certainly his finest performance in any film, well deserving his Oscar. Deborah Kerr leaves our jaws agape at her wholly convincing portrayal of a cringeing, crushed daughter of a tyrant mother who despite having entered middle age still says simperingly: 'Yes Mummy, No Mummy' and is afraid of her own shadow. The film is actually dominated by two older women: on the one hand, Gladys Cooper tyrannizes over the entire cast of characters with her Olympian certainties, pernicious control freakery, destructive and sadistic cruelty, all masked by 'proper manners', a 'concern for morality', and a view of herself as representative of a superior class of being, not to mention the upper class of society. She is one of those elegantly dressed older women who used to dominate all around them, gave themselves the airs of duchesses, or at least of the duchesses they imagined (since they had probably never met one), and who carried snobbery to its greatest heights. Cooper absolutely dominates the screen in every shot, and her arched brow or wrinkled nose of disapproval is enough to terrify a pontiff. And then there is the calm, emotionally ravaged, but practical and efficient hotelier, played by Wendy Hiller. She dominates her own scenes in turn, with her unique charm, and she well deserved her Oscar too. Poor Wendy has been in love with Burt Lancaster for years. But then his ex-wife Rita Hayworth turns up, whose cold glamour casts an arctic spell, and the intensity of her needs and her egotism threaten to turn the proceedings to ice, which will shatter into shards and leave everyone chilled at the heart. It is all done to perfection. Delbert Mann, who was such a brilliant director, here outdoes himself. The stagey 'set' of the hotel suggests a large, rambling stage set through which the camera relentlessly prowls. There is no attempt made to show 'the world outside', or to achieve realism beyond the walls of the Hotel Beauregard where the multiple dramas unfold. We all somehow understand that this is a play, but there is nothing uncinematic about it, quite the reverse. The underlying theme of all the stories in this film can be summed up in one word: self-control. All of the characters' feelings are suppressed, all of their upper lips are as stiff as boards, all of their hearts are breaking, everything is appearance, but beneath the appearance there are the unheard screams, the cries, the agonies, the concealed feelings, and the sobs that are never heard because never uttered. The days when people could control themselves (albeit so often too much so, as we see here) are long gone. Nowadays it all hangs out, every last bit of it. Nothing is concealed any longer. And yet here we see a tableau of self-control presented to our eyes to remind us what everything was like just a short time ago, well within the living memories of half the people on the planet. And yet, as I said, no one under 30 could possibly comprehend even one iota of what is meant or represented by this study of a lost society, this museum of morals and manners that have all gone as completely as the dodo. There is such pathos in this film, as we suffer with these people whose torn hearts are pinned behind their backs, and who go through life helpless, flailing, and nearly lost. What a step back in time this is, so strongly and unforgettably portrayed. When the fossils are all inspected in the natural history museums of the future, will this one be amongst them? And will it inspire more awe than the triceratops? As an example of magnificent ensemble playing it is difficult to imagine this film being surpassed. It is an absolute masterpiece.
Loneliness and desperation at its most heartfelt
TheLittleSongbird8 August 2017
After watching the Terence Rattigan DVD collection (with most of the adaptations being from the 70s and 80s) when staying with family friends last year, Rattigan very quickly became one of my favourite playwrights and he still is. His dialogue is so intelligent, witty and meaty, his characterisation so dynamic, complex and real and the storytelling so beautifully constructed.
'Separate Tables' for all those reasons and how Rattigan brings emotional and psychological complexities to real life situations is classic Rattigan, to me one of his best. This 1958 film does it justice. Other adaptations of Rattigan did better jobs at opening out the source material, notable examples being 1951's 'The Browning Version' and 1948's 'The Winslow Boy', but keeping things confined here in 'Separate Tables' was in keeping with the characters' situations without being too stagy.
The weakest element of 'Separate Tables' is that while Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton are appealing their material isn't as interesting or as meaty as that for the rest of the characters. Otherwise there is little to complain about.
Rattigan's writing shines brilliantly in 'Separate Tables', to me he was one of the great playwrights/writers of the 20th century who didn't deserve to go out of fashion (or so that seems to be the case). It has so much intelligence, insight, meaty complexity, emotional impact and the odd bit of humour (though much of the play bases itself around a serious subject). Is the film talky? Sure. Then again as was said for 1948's 'The Winslow Boy', the play is talky and Rattigan in general is talky.
As well as clever, consummate storytelling, it's melodramatic but in an incredibly insightful, intricately intimate, honest and poignant way that tells so much about the characters and their situations, the film doesn't get overwrought or overheated and the ending is one particularly powerful scene.
Production values are handsome, and wisely kept simple rather than going for big, grand, lavish spectacle that would most likely have been overblown and swamped the drama and characterisation which would have wrecked things completely. Didn't think that Delbert Mann's direction was bland at all, it's restrained and low-key but always assured.
One cannot not mention the wonderful casting. Although not having the strongest characters, Taylor and Dalton are still good, but the more well-known names in more interesting roles dominate. David Niven received an Oscar for his performance here, despite his screen time not being long judging from his moving performance of a seemingly blustery character who darkens vastly in demeanour it was deserved. Deborah Kerr's performance as a meek, mousy character is deeply felt, she avoids too being too meek to be bland. Wendy Hiller is understated and sympathetic.
Burt Lancaster has fun while also bringing intensity and vulnerability. Rita Hayworth, one of Hollywood's most glamorous beauties, has rarely been more heart-wrenching. One can't forget the superbly domineering Gladys Cooper either.
Overall, a beautiful film and as good a film adaptation of 'Separate Tables' as one would find anywhere. 9/10 Bethany Cox
'Separate Tables' for all those reasons and how Rattigan brings emotional and psychological complexities to real life situations is classic Rattigan, to me one of his best. This 1958 film does it justice. Other adaptations of Rattigan did better jobs at opening out the source material, notable examples being 1951's 'The Browning Version' and 1948's 'The Winslow Boy', but keeping things confined here in 'Separate Tables' was in keeping with the characters' situations without being too stagy.
The weakest element of 'Separate Tables' is that while Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton are appealing their material isn't as interesting or as meaty as that for the rest of the characters. Otherwise there is little to complain about.
Rattigan's writing shines brilliantly in 'Separate Tables', to me he was one of the great playwrights/writers of the 20th century who didn't deserve to go out of fashion (or so that seems to be the case). It has so much intelligence, insight, meaty complexity, emotional impact and the odd bit of humour (though much of the play bases itself around a serious subject). Is the film talky? Sure. Then again as was said for 1948's 'The Winslow Boy', the play is talky and Rattigan in general is talky.
As well as clever, consummate storytelling, it's melodramatic but in an incredibly insightful, intricately intimate, honest and poignant way that tells so much about the characters and their situations, the film doesn't get overwrought or overheated and the ending is one particularly powerful scene.
Production values are handsome, and wisely kept simple rather than going for big, grand, lavish spectacle that would most likely have been overblown and swamped the drama and characterisation which would have wrecked things completely. Didn't think that Delbert Mann's direction was bland at all, it's restrained and low-key but always assured.
One cannot not mention the wonderful casting. Although not having the strongest characters, Taylor and Dalton are still good, but the more well-known names in more interesting roles dominate. David Niven received an Oscar for his performance here, despite his screen time not being long judging from his moving performance of a seemingly blustery character who darkens vastly in demeanour it was deserved. Deborah Kerr's performance as a meek, mousy character is deeply felt, she avoids too being too meek to be bland. Wendy Hiller is understated and sympathetic.
Burt Lancaster has fun while also bringing intensity and vulnerability. Rita Hayworth, one of Hollywood's most glamorous beauties, has rarely been more heart-wrenching. One can't forget the superbly domineering Gladys Cooper either.
Overall, a beautiful film and as good a film adaptation of 'Separate Tables' as one would find anywhere. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Bitter suite
Lejink10 June 2010
About as far removed from his American playwright contemporary Tennessee Williams as you could get, yet there's a place in my heart for English dramatist Terence Rattigan and his perhaps subtler expositions of motive, need, weakness and ultimately dignity in the human condition.
Interestingly, this movie adaptation of his mid 50's play, slightly improbably makes prominent use of American actors, although fortuitously possibly, this helps to elevates its status to a wider and higher level and almost certainly helped it to get noticed by the Academy at the awards round.
Director Mann doesn't try too hard to "open out" the play for the cinema, realising its strength lies in depicting the enclosed stultifying world of the not-quite "Grand Hotel", it acting as a metaphor for the trapped existences of its various inhabitants. That said, none of the main characters hardly seem drawn from reality, but once you concede the writer's dramatic licence, you have to admire his skill in their interplay and the well-managed conclusion which works too as an indictment against narrow-minded intolerance as the fellow-guests at last react against flinty old Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) and her petty-minded outrage at and desired expulsion of David Niven's disgraced "Major" character. Niven won the Oscar for his performance and you can see why, moving from blustery, caddish bonhomie (his "what what" refrain really gets on your nerves as he himself honestly admits) to his awkward embarrassed demeanour at the end. In support, I also enjoyed the playing of Wendy Hiller as the school-marmy hotelier, Deborah Kerr as Nesbitt's sexually repressed daughter and Gladys Cooper as her put-upon friend who like the daughter rises up but gently to overturn the Major's victimisation and rehabilitate him.
It doesn't all work, Lancaster and Hayworth's story seems to belong in a different play / film and the minor parts are too sketchily drawn (Rod Taylor and his randy girlfriend too obviously counterpointing the sexual gaucheness of Kerr's Sibyl) and a too obvious Margaret Rutherford type inserted no doubt to add some humour.
I'm pretty sure it would have made for a better night out at the theatre than the cinema, but I wouldn't deny the play's elevation to a wider audience and certainly didn't regret checking in on this occasion.
Interestingly, this movie adaptation of his mid 50's play, slightly improbably makes prominent use of American actors, although fortuitously possibly, this helps to elevates its status to a wider and higher level and almost certainly helped it to get noticed by the Academy at the awards round.
Director Mann doesn't try too hard to "open out" the play for the cinema, realising its strength lies in depicting the enclosed stultifying world of the not-quite "Grand Hotel", it acting as a metaphor for the trapped existences of its various inhabitants. That said, none of the main characters hardly seem drawn from reality, but once you concede the writer's dramatic licence, you have to admire his skill in their interplay and the well-managed conclusion which works too as an indictment against narrow-minded intolerance as the fellow-guests at last react against flinty old Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) and her petty-minded outrage at and desired expulsion of David Niven's disgraced "Major" character. Niven won the Oscar for his performance and you can see why, moving from blustery, caddish bonhomie (his "what what" refrain really gets on your nerves as he himself honestly admits) to his awkward embarrassed demeanour at the end. In support, I also enjoyed the playing of Wendy Hiller as the school-marmy hotelier, Deborah Kerr as Nesbitt's sexually repressed daughter and Gladys Cooper as her put-upon friend who like the daughter rises up but gently to overturn the Major's victimisation and rehabilitate him.
It doesn't all work, Lancaster and Hayworth's story seems to belong in a different play / film and the minor parts are too sketchily drawn (Rod Taylor and his randy girlfriend too obviously counterpointing the sexual gaucheness of Kerr's Sibyl) and a too obvious Margaret Rutherford type inserted no doubt to add some humour.
I'm pretty sure it would have made for a better night out at the theatre than the cinema, but I wouldn't deny the play's elevation to a wider audience and certainly didn't regret checking in on this occasion.
This is as engaging a film as ever there was.
oogiebob-121 October 2007
This film follows perfect form in the way the characters are introduced in stages and developed along with the story. It has the intimacy of watching a one-act play. The acting is flawless. Each character earns the audience sympathy from the first moment they become engaged in the performance. When I recognized the film from having seen it on TV when I was very young, I dropped watching a couple of playoff games on TV to watch this film instead. The story is elaborate and delicious. The characters change and surprise as the plot takes unexpected twists. It is all held neatly together in the microcosm of the small hotel in classic fashion. This is the kind of movie people are referring to when they say they were "watching old movies on TV". People who like old movies love this one. The subtleties and grace of a past era are wonderfully exemplified in this film while it delivers themes that are adult, complex, and controversial. All of this amidst the elegance of the setting. This is a beautifully directed, and superbly acted film that makes you glad you watched it.
David Niven Deserved His Oscar
Holdjerhorses31 July 2013
Having recently watched "You Were Never Lovelier" with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, it's interesting to notice how she was largely shot and directed throughout her career.
Her dancing in "Lovelier" was fun and fine in "The Shorty George," where she's relaxed and clearly having a ball -- and appears to be keeping up with Astaire. "Appears" is the operative word. Astaire (who choreographed) carefully kept their routines within Hayworth's range, never challenging her beyond her capacities. But Hayworth completely lacked Ginger Rogers' lithe body fluidity and on screen electricity.
Hayworth was stunningly beautiful, of course. But even in "Lovelier" there are moments when, not carefully lit, the forehead lines that were so apparent in later years (unless also carefully lit) were already apparent and fleetingly distracting.
More to the point was how she was directed and photographed in "Lovelier." She actually has very few lines. What she does have are usually brief and delivered in a relatively quick take before cutting away.
She never makes emotional transitions in a scene. Rather, the camera cuts to a new angle when she's called on to register a different emotion. The primary goal at all times is to maintain her seemingly flawless facial beauty. Fine in a fluff piece like "Lovelier."
Cut to "Separate Tables" 16 years later.
Hayworth is still beautiful if more "mature." AGAIN she is never shown making an emotional transition in one shot: cutaways are instead employed. The technique (to disguise her limited acting abilities) is particularly jarring in her dramatic scene in her bedroom with Burt Lancaster. On closer inspection, she "poses" from cut to cut rather than displaying her character's emotional arcs.
Sure, she was supposed to be an aging model, all self-possessed poise. But not in that dramatic scene.
Still, it's a fascinating lesson in how skilled film making disguises limited range. (For a heartbreaking account of the making of her last film, read Frank Langella's "Dropped Names.")
Terence Rattigan's play was forced to disguise the homosexual "scandal" of the Major's (David Niven) being arrested for soliciting men in dark movie houses, though the implication is fairly clear.
Knowing the repression of homosexuality at that time makes Niven's performance even more involving; especially once the scandal is revealed to the boarders at the Beauregard.
Niven's amazing performance (in only 16 minutes of screen time) is disarmingly deep. He goes from an almost comical figure to an exposed fraud with a dark secret since childhood, to a lost late-middle-aged man with no future, to the final hope of redemption.
Niven shows all his character's subtle emotional transitions in sustained takes (unlike Hayworth).
Deborah Kerr is fine and completely convincing, as always.
Burt Lancaster gives another version of Burt Lancaster in not his finest hour. "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Rose Tattoo," "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" -- even "Trapeze" -- are better records of his talents. But he's always believable.
The remaining cast, especially the nuanced Wendy Hiller, are terrific.
Still, it's Hayworth's impression -- not her character's -- who lingers as something not quite real, not untalented, but unrealized and somewhat vacant. It's not her mental deterioration. It was there on screen from the beginning. She tried gamely throughout her career, and looked magnificent thanks to careful costuming, lighting and cinematography. But even with careful cutaway direction she seems little more than a paper doll -- and finally, tragically, just as fragile.
Her dancing in "Lovelier" was fun and fine in "The Shorty George," where she's relaxed and clearly having a ball -- and appears to be keeping up with Astaire. "Appears" is the operative word. Astaire (who choreographed) carefully kept their routines within Hayworth's range, never challenging her beyond her capacities. But Hayworth completely lacked Ginger Rogers' lithe body fluidity and on screen electricity.
Hayworth was stunningly beautiful, of course. But even in "Lovelier" there are moments when, not carefully lit, the forehead lines that were so apparent in later years (unless also carefully lit) were already apparent and fleetingly distracting.
More to the point was how she was directed and photographed in "Lovelier." She actually has very few lines. What she does have are usually brief and delivered in a relatively quick take before cutting away.
She never makes emotional transitions in a scene. Rather, the camera cuts to a new angle when she's called on to register a different emotion. The primary goal at all times is to maintain her seemingly flawless facial beauty. Fine in a fluff piece like "Lovelier."
Cut to "Separate Tables" 16 years later.
Hayworth is still beautiful if more "mature." AGAIN she is never shown making an emotional transition in one shot: cutaways are instead employed. The technique (to disguise her limited acting abilities) is particularly jarring in her dramatic scene in her bedroom with Burt Lancaster. On closer inspection, she "poses" from cut to cut rather than displaying her character's emotional arcs.
Sure, she was supposed to be an aging model, all self-possessed poise. But not in that dramatic scene.
Still, it's a fascinating lesson in how skilled film making disguises limited range. (For a heartbreaking account of the making of her last film, read Frank Langella's "Dropped Names.")
Terence Rattigan's play was forced to disguise the homosexual "scandal" of the Major's (David Niven) being arrested for soliciting men in dark movie houses, though the implication is fairly clear.
Knowing the repression of homosexuality at that time makes Niven's performance even more involving; especially once the scandal is revealed to the boarders at the Beauregard.
Niven's amazing performance (in only 16 minutes of screen time) is disarmingly deep. He goes from an almost comical figure to an exposed fraud with a dark secret since childhood, to a lost late-middle-aged man with no future, to the final hope of redemption.
Niven shows all his character's subtle emotional transitions in sustained takes (unlike Hayworth).
Deborah Kerr is fine and completely convincing, as always.
Burt Lancaster gives another version of Burt Lancaster in not his finest hour. "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Rose Tattoo," "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" -- even "Trapeze" -- are better records of his talents. But he's always believable.
The remaining cast, especially the nuanced Wendy Hiller, are terrific.
Still, it's Hayworth's impression -- not her character's -- who lingers as something not quite real, not untalented, but unrealized and somewhat vacant. It's not her mental deterioration. It was there on screen from the beginning. She tried gamely throughout her career, and looked magnificent thanks to careful costuming, lighting and cinematography. But even with careful cutaway direction she seems little more than a paper doll -- and finally, tragically, just as fragile.
Fantastically acted classic
HotToastyRag22 February 2018
Based off of Terence Rattigan's plays, Separate Tables is one of the few stage adaptations that transfers extremely well to the big screen. Most play-to-film adaptations are woody and wordy, and the dialogue is extremely artificial. If you've seen a Tennessee Williams movie, you know what I mean. William Inge's plays usually translate well, as does this film, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won two in the 1959 ceremony.
The entire film takes place in an English hotel that's like a permanent bed and breakfast. Wendy Hiller, who won Best Supporting Actress, gives an excellent strong, subdued, and conflicted performance as the hotel proprietress. She's romantically involved with one of her tenants, Burt Lancaster, a tortured soul with a violent temper who drowns his sorrows in alcohol. What will happen when Rita Hayworth, Burt's old flame, comes to town? Gladys Cooper virtually reprises her role from Now, Voyager and plays a controlling, judgmental mother to Deborah Kerr. Deborah gives one of her finest performances; on the surface she's frightened, meek, and obedient, but underneath it all is a ticking time bomb, ready to explode with hatred of her life.
David Niven is another resident, an old, retired Major, always full of entertaining war stories and a kind word for the sheltered Deborah Kerr. Niven won Best Actor for his performance, and while I am probably one of his biggest fans, it always seemed odd to me that he was up for Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor. His character is the central crux of the plot, but the screen time is pretty equally split among the main characters. It's hard to pick out one actor or actress as "the lead". Niven is aged up for the role, and puts on a blustering persona to fit his character. He ends his sentences with a "what, what?" as a proverbial English Major would, but it's clear from the first scene he's hiding something. His constant covering is subtle and layered superbly. He doesn't act like he's "acting", and his performance certainly couldn't have been seen from the back row of the theater, but if you're on the lookout for every flinch on his face and slight pause of his words, you'll see a remarkable performance.
The worst part of the movie is Rita Hayworth. I've never been a fan of hers, and she brings nothing special to this role. Her mediocrity might not have been felt on its own, but she was surrounded by such fantastic performances and was showed up constantly. Still, Rita aside, this movie is definitely worth watching. It's a fantastic classic, with a tense, judgmental plot, but one that will keep you on the edge of your seat all the same. For a great double feature, rent Come Back, Little Sheba and Separate Tables-and don't be surprised if you get a lump in your throat more than once.
The entire film takes place in an English hotel that's like a permanent bed and breakfast. Wendy Hiller, who won Best Supporting Actress, gives an excellent strong, subdued, and conflicted performance as the hotel proprietress. She's romantically involved with one of her tenants, Burt Lancaster, a tortured soul with a violent temper who drowns his sorrows in alcohol. What will happen when Rita Hayworth, Burt's old flame, comes to town? Gladys Cooper virtually reprises her role from Now, Voyager and plays a controlling, judgmental mother to Deborah Kerr. Deborah gives one of her finest performances; on the surface she's frightened, meek, and obedient, but underneath it all is a ticking time bomb, ready to explode with hatred of her life.
David Niven is another resident, an old, retired Major, always full of entertaining war stories and a kind word for the sheltered Deborah Kerr. Niven won Best Actor for his performance, and while I am probably one of his biggest fans, it always seemed odd to me that he was up for Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor. His character is the central crux of the plot, but the screen time is pretty equally split among the main characters. It's hard to pick out one actor or actress as "the lead". Niven is aged up for the role, and puts on a blustering persona to fit his character. He ends his sentences with a "what, what?" as a proverbial English Major would, but it's clear from the first scene he's hiding something. His constant covering is subtle and layered superbly. He doesn't act like he's "acting", and his performance certainly couldn't have been seen from the back row of the theater, but if you're on the lookout for every flinch on his face and slight pause of his words, you'll see a remarkable performance.
The worst part of the movie is Rita Hayworth. I've never been a fan of hers, and she brings nothing special to this role. Her mediocrity might not have been felt on its own, but she was surrounded by such fantastic performances and was showed up constantly. Still, Rita aside, this movie is definitely worth watching. It's a fantastic classic, with a tense, judgmental plot, but one that will keep you on the edge of your seat all the same. For a great double feature, rent Come Back, Little Sheba and Separate Tables-and don't be surprised if you get a lump in your throat more than once.
Separate Tables
Prismark1012 February 2020
Terence Rattigan's play was turned into a melodrama of manners and repression.
Set in a dowdy seaside guest house in Bournemouth. The Hotel Beauregard is facing scandal with one of its guests. Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) has been named in the local newspaper for his unsavoury behaviour towards some ladies in the cinema.
The allegations reduce the bluster from the Major and make him face some truths and his inadequacies to the meek spinster Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) whose mother wants him out of the guest house and is hell bent on turning the other guests against him.
Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) who runs the Hotel Beauregard is having an affair with another guest. John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is a drunk who has fled the United States and his ex wife Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth.) Now she has turned up to reconcile with him and Pat quitely wants to give John the chance.
The drama works as a story of misfits in a post war Britain. The theatrical roots are hard to get away from this small scale drama. If the movie came out a few years later with the new wave of British cinema and the angry young men of British theatre. Separate Tables would had displayed more thunder and drama.
It is hard to believe that this rather staid British film was filmed in America and is all but an American film. Lancaster was one of the producers.
The best part of the movie is regarding Pollock and his scenes with Sibyl. Niven won an Oscar and would later play another charming but fraudulent soldier in Paper Tiger. I do think what Pollock is accused of is rather confusing. Rattigan might have been better to keep his original intentions of Polock being arrested for homosexual importuning.
Kerr so tempestuous with Burt Lancaster in the movie, From Here to Eternity glams herself down considerably here as the shy and dram Sibyl.
The John Malcolm story did not work for me as the American in England. Maybe he should had remained as an ex Labour politician and played by a British actor. Poor Wendy Hiller. Her character Pat had no chance with Rita Hayworth.
Kerr
Set in a dowdy seaside guest house in Bournemouth. The Hotel Beauregard is facing scandal with one of its guests. Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) has been named in the local newspaper for his unsavoury behaviour towards some ladies in the cinema.
The allegations reduce the bluster from the Major and make him face some truths and his inadequacies to the meek spinster Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) whose mother wants him out of the guest house and is hell bent on turning the other guests against him.
Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) who runs the Hotel Beauregard is having an affair with another guest. John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is a drunk who has fled the United States and his ex wife Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth.) Now she has turned up to reconcile with him and Pat quitely wants to give John the chance.
The drama works as a story of misfits in a post war Britain. The theatrical roots are hard to get away from this small scale drama. If the movie came out a few years later with the new wave of British cinema and the angry young men of British theatre. Separate Tables would had displayed more thunder and drama.
It is hard to believe that this rather staid British film was filmed in America and is all but an American film. Lancaster was one of the producers.
The best part of the movie is regarding Pollock and his scenes with Sibyl. Niven won an Oscar and would later play another charming but fraudulent soldier in Paper Tiger. I do think what Pollock is accused of is rather confusing. Rattigan might have been better to keep his original intentions of Polock being arrested for homosexual importuning.
Kerr so tempestuous with Burt Lancaster in the movie, From Here to Eternity glams herself down considerably here as the shy and dram Sibyl.
The John Malcolm story did not work for me as the American in England. Maybe he should had remained as an ex Labour politician and played by a British actor. Poor Wendy Hiller. Her character Pat had no chance with Rita Hayworth.
Kerr
Great character acting
barryrd9 March 2010
This movie is an under-rated little gem. Typical of its director, Delbert Mann, it has a low budget and limited set, but a cast with enormous talent. The excellence of the acting and the characters that emerge make this movie special.
The movie takes place in a a hotel operated by Wendy Hiller, who is romantically involved with Burt Lancaster. His wife, played by Rita Hayworth, shows up unexpectedly to try to mend fences with her husband. As the movie progresses, David Niven, another of the residents, is exposed as a fraud with a scandal hanging over him. A younger woman, played by Deborah Kerr, has taken an interest in him. Kerr is manipulated by her domineering mother, played by Gladys Cooper, who has moulded her into a sad and shy young woman. As the ring leader of this haven of interesting characters, Gladys Cooper is positively delighted by the news of Niven's shady side and tries to evict him from the hotel. Will she succeed or will the good in people prevail?
This is a fine movie with great performances by the cast, British and American. Not mentioned above is Felix Aylmer who adds a touch of class as Mr. Fowler as well as Rod Taylor and Cathleen Nesbitt whose minor roles contribute to the overall pleasure of this movie. If you get the chance, don't miss it.
The movie takes place in a a hotel operated by Wendy Hiller, who is romantically involved with Burt Lancaster. His wife, played by Rita Hayworth, shows up unexpectedly to try to mend fences with her husband. As the movie progresses, David Niven, another of the residents, is exposed as a fraud with a scandal hanging over him. A younger woman, played by Deborah Kerr, has taken an interest in him. Kerr is manipulated by her domineering mother, played by Gladys Cooper, who has moulded her into a sad and shy young woman. As the ring leader of this haven of interesting characters, Gladys Cooper is positively delighted by the news of Niven's shady side and tries to evict him from the hotel. Will she succeed or will the good in people prevail?
This is a fine movie with great performances by the cast, British and American. Not mentioned above is Felix Aylmer who adds a touch of class as Mr. Fowler as well as Rod Taylor and Cathleen Nesbitt whose minor roles contribute to the overall pleasure of this movie. If you get the chance, don't miss it.
Early Departure Please!
spookyrat118 July 2020
Delbert Mann's's 1958 drama hasn't worn its years well. I was curious to see the film for which, one of my favourites, David Niven, won a Best Actor Oscar, in what is very much an ensemble piece. As a fan I have to be pretty honest and suggest that though it was good to know he was rewarded for a distinguished career, I think he was pretty lucky. His character Major Pollock is virtually absent from the film's second act.
Speaking of film, Separate Tables is striking in how strongly it reflects it's theatrical origins, being based on two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan, who had a hand as a co-writer in adapting his plays for the screen. There are no external locations. Everything clearly takes place on soundstages, with the action confined to the interiors (and very occasionally the exteriors) of the Hotel Beauregard in Bournemouth on the south coast of England.
The story concerns a day or two in the life of the hotel residents, many of whom presumably take a room on a permanent basis. I see some of the scribes to this site are talking about the characters' storylines, using words such as "gripping", "suspenseful" and "adventures"(???). Might I respectfully suggest that they are guilty of a severe case of hyperbole. Nothing could be much further from the truth. To paraphrase Rick Blaine from Casablanca, "... it doesn't take much to see that the problems of these little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."
A domineering mother (Gladys Cooper) lording it over her mousy shy daughter(Deborah Kerr) who holds the torch for a pompous ex-military windbag (Niven), who finds himself on the outer, for apparently going the grope in a darkened theatre. If that doesn't rock your boat, you can always try the American connection. Rather unbelievably, an ex-model played by Rita Hayworth, comes looking to ostensibly reunite with the ex-husband who apparently once tried to murder her in some drunken rage and who we see still has his anger management issues. If the hotel proprietress (Wendy Hiller)(who is secretly engaged to her international guest) smells a rat, so do we, when we see that Burt Lancaster's writer, is written more sympathetically than the missus. Perhaps this was because Lancaster's production company made the film and he oversaw the editing process over Mann's objections. Whatever, but the tone is decidedly anachronistic in a modern era dominated by MeToo themes and campaigns.
The other guests' stories are shoved unceremoniously into the background of this brisk 100 minute feature. Given the late 50's conservative social setting, the thread of the 2 university students, suspected by some guests of engaging in a little pre-marital horizontal folk-dancing in each others rooms is oddly given only the slightest passing reference. Separate Tables ends up being a well-acted, curiosity piece more than anything else. Certainly not a serious piece of classic cinema by any means.
In finishing I have to agree with that minority of other observant users, who see the very obvious template, being laid out for the future Fawlty Towers. Of course John Cleese and Connie Booth had to have been influenced by this movie, in creating their hilariously classic TV series. The same sort of hotel, in the same part of the world, with the same sort of retired major (minus the harassment charges) managed by the same sort of primly efficient proprietress, whose name is Sybil (like Deborah Kerr's character) and much of the action also takes part in the dining room of separate tables. If this was to be the lasting legacy of Separate Tables, well then the least I can do is award it a generous 6.
Speaking of film, Separate Tables is striking in how strongly it reflects it's theatrical origins, being based on two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan, who had a hand as a co-writer in adapting his plays for the screen. There are no external locations. Everything clearly takes place on soundstages, with the action confined to the interiors (and very occasionally the exteriors) of the Hotel Beauregard in Bournemouth on the south coast of England.
The story concerns a day or two in the life of the hotel residents, many of whom presumably take a room on a permanent basis. I see some of the scribes to this site are talking about the characters' storylines, using words such as "gripping", "suspenseful" and "adventures"(???). Might I respectfully suggest that they are guilty of a severe case of hyperbole. Nothing could be much further from the truth. To paraphrase Rick Blaine from Casablanca, "... it doesn't take much to see that the problems of these little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."
A domineering mother (Gladys Cooper) lording it over her mousy shy daughter(Deborah Kerr) who holds the torch for a pompous ex-military windbag (Niven), who finds himself on the outer, for apparently going the grope in a darkened theatre. If that doesn't rock your boat, you can always try the American connection. Rather unbelievably, an ex-model played by Rita Hayworth, comes looking to ostensibly reunite with the ex-husband who apparently once tried to murder her in some drunken rage and who we see still has his anger management issues. If the hotel proprietress (Wendy Hiller)(who is secretly engaged to her international guest) smells a rat, so do we, when we see that Burt Lancaster's writer, is written more sympathetically than the missus. Perhaps this was because Lancaster's production company made the film and he oversaw the editing process over Mann's objections. Whatever, but the tone is decidedly anachronistic in a modern era dominated by MeToo themes and campaigns.
The other guests' stories are shoved unceremoniously into the background of this brisk 100 minute feature. Given the late 50's conservative social setting, the thread of the 2 university students, suspected by some guests of engaging in a little pre-marital horizontal folk-dancing in each others rooms is oddly given only the slightest passing reference. Separate Tables ends up being a well-acted, curiosity piece more than anything else. Certainly not a serious piece of classic cinema by any means.
In finishing I have to agree with that minority of other observant users, who see the very obvious template, being laid out for the future Fawlty Towers. Of course John Cleese and Connie Booth had to have been influenced by this movie, in creating their hilariously classic TV series. The same sort of hotel, in the same part of the world, with the same sort of retired major (minus the harassment charges) managed by the same sort of primly efficient proprietress, whose name is Sybil (like Deborah Kerr's character) and much of the action also takes part in the dining room of separate tables. If this was to be the lasting legacy of Separate Tables, well then the least I can do is award it a generous 6.
A well-made film.(possible spoiler)
alice liddell19 April 2000
Warning: Spoilers
SEPARATE TABLES opens and closes with the barred gates of the Hotel Beauregard, a Bournemouth hostel for the 'respectable' but impoverished. The metaphorical title refers to an item of decor, tables. Although this film purports to be a heightened study of character, the true hero is the setting, the cramped interiors through which all the people pass, the bars that trap them not only in place, but in the lies and pretensions that help them struggle through life.
We are introduced to a number of characters - Major Pollock, a retired officer full of military bluff (what what), whose 'shocking' behaviour at a cinema brings all the tensions at the Hotel to a head, as some of the boarders try to get him thrown out. Sibyl is the young hysteric who loves him from afar, but who cows to her imperious mother, Mrs Railton-Bell, whose stifling respectability is the main agent of repression in the hotel. John Malcolm is the whiskey-guzzling writer secretly in love with the hotel's owner, Pat Cooper, and whose ex-wife Ann Shankland comes to the hotel, a beautiful but aging model, still bearing the scars of Malcolm's jealous violence. Mr. Fowler is a retired, implicitly homosexual classics master waiting Godot-like for an ex-pupil to visit.
The film is based on two playlets by the master of the middle-class well-made play, Terrence Rattigan, and this is clearly evident not only in the claustrophobic single set, but in the emphasis on onion-like dialogue to reveal character and prompt action. The theatrical form is apparent in the manner ensemble business gives way to a series of lengthy set-pieces, where two characters thrash out whatever has to be said; there is also an obvious three-act structure.
Rattigan's style, considered old-fashioned today, determines a number of the film's features. The characters all talk in clipped, stiff upper lip, plummy tones. The single-set with all these emotionally traumatised characters is like a pressure cooker waiting to boil over, but when violence does eventually erupt, it is predictably the American who prompts it - such catharsis would simply not be British.
More telling still is how Rattigan contains all these traumas in the way the house does. Godlike, he is able to bring about resolution and reconciliation, strip away humbug and hypocrisy, let essentially decent people begin again. Unlike many Hollywood films, or British well-made plays, mistakes are not fatal, they can be forgiven. The neatness of the form accomodates this - once the central crises have been outlined, events proceed predictably, because these are predictable lives.
It would be an injustice to Rattigan to deny his anger, and from his own position as a repressed homosexual (still illegal in Britain at the time the film was made), he can portray lives paralysed by the need to live up to certain (usually self-generated) expectations. The use of the hotel to dramatise different types might lead one to suspect the film is a kind of allegory, that the hotel is England, but it's not an England many people in 1958 would have recognised - we really are watching relics in a museum. Even the daring young couple seem very quaint.
In a film where the director goes out of his way to serve the static material, the burden of interest must fall on the cast. And what an amazing cast it is - Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper, David Niven. It's not that they do anything wrong, but they are hampered by the fact that their parts are both hackneyed and unrealistic; they play them well, but to see emotion bubbling in a rigid surface, there are better films elsewhere. Niven is one of my beloved actors, and he's very good here, but, Oscar or not, he fudges his big scene with Kerr by rattling off his lines mechanically. His closing scene at breakfast is much better.
It's hard to fault a film that does what it sets out to achieve with thorough success, it's just the kind of respectable, bourgeois, evasive entertainment that makes me want to, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, SCREAM.
We are introduced to a number of characters - Major Pollock, a retired officer full of military bluff (what what), whose 'shocking' behaviour at a cinema brings all the tensions at the Hotel to a head, as some of the boarders try to get him thrown out. Sibyl is the young hysteric who loves him from afar, but who cows to her imperious mother, Mrs Railton-Bell, whose stifling respectability is the main agent of repression in the hotel. John Malcolm is the whiskey-guzzling writer secretly in love with the hotel's owner, Pat Cooper, and whose ex-wife Ann Shankland comes to the hotel, a beautiful but aging model, still bearing the scars of Malcolm's jealous violence. Mr. Fowler is a retired, implicitly homosexual classics master waiting Godot-like for an ex-pupil to visit.
The film is based on two playlets by the master of the middle-class well-made play, Terrence Rattigan, and this is clearly evident not only in the claustrophobic single set, but in the emphasis on onion-like dialogue to reveal character and prompt action. The theatrical form is apparent in the manner ensemble business gives way to a series of lengthy set-pieces, where two characters thrash out whatever has to be said; there is also an obvious three-act structure.
Rattigan's style, considered old-fashioned today, determines a number of the film's features. The characters all talk in clipped, stiff upper lip, plummy tones. The single-set with all these emotionally traumatised characters is like a pressure cooker waiting to boil over, but when violence does eventually erupt, it is predictably the American who prompts it - such catharsis would simply not be British.
More telling still is how Rattigan contains all these traumas in the way the house does. Godlike, he is able to bring about resolution and reconciliation, strip away humbug and hypocrisy, let essentially decent people begin again. Unlike many Hollywood films, or British well-made plays, mistakes are not fatal, they can be forgiven. The neatness of the form accomodates this - once the central crises have been outlined, events proceed predictably, because these are predictable lives.
It would be an injustice to Rattigan to deny his anger, and from his own position as a repressed homosexual (still illegal in Britain at the time the film was made), he can portray lives paralysed by the need to live up to certain (usually self-generated) expectations. The use of the hotel to dramatise different types might lead one to suspect the film is a kind of allegory, that the hotel is England, but it's not an England many people in 1958 would have recognised - we really are watching relics in a museum. Even the daring young couple seem very quaint.
In a film where the director goes out of his way to serve the static material, the burden of interest must fall on the cast. And what an amazing cast it is - Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper, David Niven. It's not that they do anything wrong, but they are hampered by the fact that their parts are both hackneyed and unrealistic; they play them well, but to see emotion bubbling in a rigid surface, there are better films elsewhere. Niven is one of my beloved actors, and he's very good here, but, Oscar or not, he fudges his big scene with Kerr by rattling off his lines mechanically. His closing scene at breakfast is much better.
It's hard to fault a film that does what it sets out to achieve with thorough success, it's just the kind of respectable, bourgeois, evasive entertainment that makes me want to, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, SCREAM.
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