Themes: Fathers and Daughters, Generation Gap, Alcoholism
Main Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda de Banzie, Daphne Anderson, Prunella Scales
Release Year: 1953
Country: UK
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
A "Hobson's Choice," as any slang expert will tell you, is no choice at all. In this 1953 filmization of Harold Brighouse's 1915 play Hobson's Choice, hero John Mills finds after several reels of evidence to the contrary that he does have a choice over how he'll conduct his life after all. Mills is the assistant to domineering boot-shop owner Charles Laughton, who lords it over his employees and three daughters by day, then tumbles through the streets on many a drunken evening. Laughton's "old-maid" daughter Brenda DeBanzie breaks free of her father's tyranny, marries Mills, and together with her new husband sets up a rival boot shop when Laughton refuses her a dowry. Father rants and raves, but finally agrees to a merger with his daughter that will assure Mills a large measure of freedom over managing things. The winner of the British Film Institute "Best Film" award of 1954, Hobson's Choice chalked up another international success for director David Lean. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Hobson's Choice is one of director David Lean's best comedies, featuring a fine performance by Charles Laughton as the domineering boot-shop owner whose drunken behavior causes his family to rebel. Filmed on location in Salford, England, Hobson's Choice marvelously recreates the late Victorian era, and makes a credible stab at the linguistic flavor of the region. The story is told with Lean's trademark subtlety, most apparent in the wedding-night scene between Brenda De Banzie and John Mills. One of Lean's greatest strengths as a director was his versatility over a wide range of motifs and settings. The intimate, back-and-white domestic comedy of Hobson shows little evidence of the widescreen, epic grandeur that would inform such later Lean work as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India. Cinematographer Jack Hildyard does a fine job of keeping Hobson's Choice visually interesting. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Richard Wattis - Albert Presser; Derek Blomfield - Freddy Breenstock; Helen Haye - Mrs. Hepworth; Joseph Tomelty - Jim Heeler; Julien Mitchell - Sam Minns; Gibb McLaughlin - Tudsbury; Philip Stainton - Denton; Dorothy Gordon - Ada Figgins; Madge Brindley - Mrs. Figgins; John Laurie - Dr. MacFarlane; Raymond Huntley - Nathaniel Beenstock; Jack Howarth - Tubby Wadlow; Herbert C. Walton - Printer
Credit
John Armstrong - Costume Designer, David Lean - Director, Peter Taylor - Editor, Malcolm Arnold - Composer (Music Score), Muir Mathieson - Musical Direction/Supervision, Wilfred Shingleton - Production Designer, Jack Hildyard - Cinematographer, David Lean - Producer, David Lean - Screenwriter, Wynyard Browne - Screenwriter, Norman Spencer - Screenwriter, Harold Brighouse - Play Author
Willie Mossop (John Mills) is a gifted, but unappreciated shoemaker employed by the tyrannical Henry Horatio Hobson (Charles Laughton) in his moderately upscale shop in 1880s Salford. Widower Hobson has three daughters. Maggie (Brenda De Banzie) and her younger sisters Alice (Daphne Anderson) and Vicky (Prunella Scales) have worked in their father's establishment without wages and are eager to be married and free of the shop. Alice has been seeing Albert Prosser (Richard Wattis), a young up-and-coming solicitor, while Vicky prefers Freddy Beenstock (Derek Blomfield), the son of a respectable corn merchant. Hobson doesn't object to losing Alice and Vickey, but Maggie is far too useful to part with. To his friends, he mocks her as a spinster "a bit on the ripe side" at 30 years of age.
Her pride injured, she bullies the contented, unambitious Will Mossop into an engagement. When Hobson objects to her choice of husband and refuses to start paying her, Maggie decides that she and Willie will set up in a shop of their own. For capital, they turn to a very satisfied customer for a loan. With money in hand, they get married and, between her business sense and his shoemaking genius, the enterprise is very successful. Within a year, he has taken away nearly all of Hobson's clientele. Finally, at Maggie's urging, Mossop goes into partnership with Hobson, now an almost-bankrupt alcoholic, on condition that Hobson take no further part in the business.
While some contemporary critics felt that Lean's direction was rather formal and dated, most acclaimed his assured touch; and the acting was seen as successful.[1]
Awards
Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear 1954 and British Film Academy Award Best British Film 1954.[2]
