TJE 7/4 - My Favorite David Lean Film

Director David Lean is best known for his epics like "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago," and "The Bridge on the River Kwai." However, he started out in the UK making smaller, more intimate films, like the classic unrequited love story "Brief Encounter," and adaptations of "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist." It's into the latter category that my favorite David Lean film should be placed: the very small-scale domestic comedy-drama "Hobson's Choice."

My favorite films by a particular director are rarely the best films that they have produced, and that's certainly the case here. Lean hardly gets to show off any of his skills as an epic filmmaker in "Hobson's Choice." All the action takes place in a pair of shoe shops, a local pub, an apartment, someone's basement, and in the adjoining streets. Instead of a cast of hundreds or thousands, we have the family of Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton), who runs a boot store in Salford. Hobson is a widower with three grown daughters, Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), Alice (Daphne Anderson), and Vicky (Prunella Scales). One day, fed up with living in a house full of women, he resolves to find husbands for the younger two, though both already have matches in mind, and keep Maggie, the eldest, at home to look after the shop and keep house. She's too old for marriage, he declares. Maggie, however, has her own ideas.

You can probably guess why this film strikes a nerve with me. Charles Laughton is billed as the lead, and he's terrific as the bloviating, frequently tipsy Hobson, who has been master of his own little domain for so long, he has taken it for granted. However, there are two others who should share top billing. First there's Brenda De Banzie as Maggie, who is sharp-minded and iron-willed enough to figure out how to grab the life that she wants from under her father's nose, once she makes up her mind to do it. And then there's John Mills as Will Mossop, the timid bootmaker in Hobson's employ, who Maggie matter-of-factly declares will become her husband and business partner in a new shop. The one-sided courtship of Maggie and Will is one of the most enjoyable I've ever seen, a sort-of reverse "Pygmalion," where it's the woman who educates and elevates the man from a lower station, but in this case she couldn't be more pleased when he surpasses her.

I've never encountered a film heroine quite like Maggie, who is so forceful and direct. She's entirely pragmatic about getting married, requiring not the least bit of romance, but turns out to be quite affectionate in her own severe way. This is a woman who has always been in charge, running a household, managing the store, and looking after everyone else around her. Now she's turning all her underutilized talent and untapped brain power to go after what she wants at last. Her escape from her father hinges strategy and cunning, rather than appeals to sentimentality and emotion, as we usually see in these situations. Thus the film simply would not work without the no-nonsense performance of Brenda De Banzie, who makes Maggie a formidable force to be reckoned with, but still sympathetic as a woman and as the daughter of a most disagreeable father.

And then there's John Mills, a name I knew, but never quite managed to put to face before this. Will Moss spends much of the film in a state of constant astonishment, taken aback at first by Maggie's forwardness, but eventually finding it much easier to go along with what she wants instead of trying to work out some reason to disagree with her. Mills gets a few delightful scenes to himself, to process and react to what is happening. His development from a soft-spoken, unappreciated laborer to a businessman with real ambition and authority is a major highlight of the film.

In comparison to Maggie and Will, I didn't care so much about the troubles of Henry Hobson, even though Charles Laughton cuts such a memorable figure as the lumbering old drunk. He's appropriately pitiful when he hits rock bottom, but never quite as sympathetic as he ought to be. As a blowhard, he can wear out his welcome very quickly. He's great for comedic purposes though. The filmmakers get a lot of mileage out of Hobson's frequent tipsiness, and the few fancy visual tricks that appear in the movie are to help better convey the extent of his inebriation.

So "Hobson's Choice" is no epic, but it's a remarkable of a picture that offers a lot of surprises. The black-and-white visuals are gorgeous, the writing is immaculate, the performances are fantastic, and though the story may be a small one, the drama that it generates is anything but. This is one of David Lean's more obscure films, but it's easily my favorite of them by a wide margin. I like his later, more famous films, but I wouldn't have minded at all if he'd just kept making movies like this one.
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What I've Seen - David Lean

In Which We Serve (1942)

This Happy Breed (1944)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Great Expectations (1946)
Oliver Twist (1948)
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Summertime (1955)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
A Passage to India (1984)
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