Main Cast: Robert Morley, Phyllis Calvert, John Neville, Ralph Richardson, Dennis Price
Release Year: 1960
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
Robert Morley is ideally cast as the legendary playwright, poet, and wit Oscar Wilde in this biographical look at the author's tumultuous life. While he was married to a woman named Constance (Phyllis Calvert), Wilde was primarily attracted to men, and at the height of his fame, he became involved with Lord Alfred Douglas (John Neville), the estranged son of the Marquis of Queensberry (Edward Chapman). The Marquis, who disliked Wilde, publicly referred to him as a "sodomite," and Wilde sued for libel. However, in the midst of the resultant trial, Sir Edward Carson (Ralph Richardson) badgered Wilde into admitting his homosexuality under oath; Wilde lost his libel suit, and was then successfully prosecuted for indecency, for which he served two years at hard labor. Wilde died a poor and emotionally shattered man in Paris a few years later. Oscar Wilde was produced at roughly the same time as The Trials of Oscar Wilde, in which Peter Finch played the title role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Alexander Knox - Sir Edgar Clarke; Edward Chapman - Marquis of Queensberry; Martin Benson - George Alexander; Robert Harris - Justice Henn Collins; Henry Oscar - Justice Wills; William Devlin - Solicitor-General; Stephen Dartnell - Cobbli; Ronald Leigh-Hunt - Lionel Johnson; Leonard Sachs - Richard Legallienne; Tom Chatto - Clerk of Arraigns; Martin Boddey - Inspector Richards; Tony Doonan - Wood
Credit
Gregory Ratoff - Director, Antony Gibbs - Editor, Kenneth V. Jones - Composer (Music Score), Georges Périnal - Cinematographer, William Kirby - Producer, Joe Eisinger - Screenwriter, Sewell Stokes - Play Author, Leslie Stokes - Play Author
This was one of two films about Wilde released in 1960, the other being The Trials of Oscar Wilde. They both hit the theatres in the last week of May. Author and former film extra, Brian Edward Hurst, gives a detailed description of a scene he witnessed during filming where Morley (as Wilde) attempted to pick up a newspaper boy on a foggy London street. Hurst's book: Heaven Can Help - the Autobiography of a Medium[1] describes the day's filming at Walton-on-Thames Studio.
The attempted seduction scene was cut from the final version. This movie was a lower budget production which was compared unfavorably with the wide-screen, technicolor version The Trials of Oscar Wilde.
