Category: Theatre Adaptation

The Country Girl (1954)

Acting with a capital A in this ultra-serious addiction drama, that makes its points with heavy hand

Director: George Seaton

Cast: Bing Crosby (Frank Elgin), Grace Kelly (Georgie Elgin), William Holden (Bernie Dodds), Anthony Ross (Philip Cook), Gene Reynolds (Larry), Jacqueline Fontaine (Lounge singer)

Adapted from Clifford Odet’s play, George Seaton’s The Country Girl is serious with a capital S, with acting with a capital A from its stars, both of whom (to the delight of the Oscars) play wildly against type. Frank Elgin (Bing Crosby) is a faded song-and-dance man, a weak-willed people pleaser who hit the bottle big time, filled with guilt about the death of his young son. He’s married to the dowdy Georgie (Grace Kelly), whose whole life has become an endless chore propping up the feeble Frank. Elgin is hired by hot-shot Broadway director Bernie Dodds (William Holden) for his new musical. Bernie soaks up Frank’s lies that Georgie is a demanding, controlling bully rather than Frank’s go-to comfort blanket. Can Georgie hold Frank together for the previews, despite Bernie’s misguided belief that Frank would fare better if she was shipped home?

The answer, not surprisingly, is no. The Country Girl in many ways, it quite Victorian in its sense of domestic tragedy. The death of Frank and Georgie’s son – killed by traffic when Frank let go of his hand for some publicity photos – has a real classic melodrama ring to it, a feeling added to by the Frank’s memories coming storming back whenever he hears the refrain of the song he had been recording moments before the accident. It’s the cause for a series of scenes of half-cut self-loathing from Frank, who powers his way through life both through the bottle and whining at Georgie to fix his problems.

Frank is an innate people-pleaser, desperate to be adored. (He even pathetically asks a barman, between shots, if he likes him). But behind that is a demanding prima-donna, turned incessant self-pitier. He moans about everything to Georgie – his lack of a dresser, being pestered by his under-study, the pressure of learning the lines and carrying the show – and then instantly assures Bernie moments later that he’s delighted with everything. Worse than that, he spins constant lies that Georgie does everything she can to batter his confidence so can control his life and give meaning to hers.

Frank even shifts his attention seeking suicide attempts and hotel smashing drunken outbursts onto her, painting himself as a victim too decent to fight back against his bullying wife (even using repurposed speeches from his old stage triumphs as material). It’s music to the ears of William Holden’s Bernie, filled with bitterness at his own ex-wife who he sees as a jealous burden holding back his own career. He laps up believing that Georgie’s demands are her self-important power plays rather than filtered demands from his cowardly star.

Bing Crosby took on his biggest acting challenge, miles away from his aw-shucks Oscar-winning Going My Way charm. Crosby put in extreme effort – rather like Frank with Bernie, George Seaton ruthlessly coached him – but the problem is you can see it all. Seemingly every scene sees Bing shaking, on the edge of tears, looking into the middle distance, and battening down the musical richness of his voice into a weak mumble. There is a lot of earnest, sad-eyed starring in The Country Girl and this softly-spoken, rather mannered performance puts everything out there (the film even throws in a few in-play musical numbers, which Crosby delivers as per his usual style, so that we can really soak up the difference in his performance).

It’s similar with Grace Kelly, her glamour disguised as much as humanly possible under an ill-fitting cardigan, glasses and bags painted under her eyes. Much like Crosby, Kelly goes all out to wring every emotion possible out of this bitter, tragic woman who loves and deeply resents her manipulative husband. Kelly won an Oscar – beating Judy Garland in A Star is Born (allegedly by about 6 votes) – and the performance smacks of the sort of Acting Oscar loves (in many ways it’s a miracle Crosby lost to Brando’s subtle work in On the Waterfront). She even has a late speech, where Georgie lets out all her buttoned-down resentment, that has ‘for your consideration’ written all over it. Much like Croby, its very mannered – you admire its professionalism but can see all the effort.

Both stars hard-work is particularly noticeable when compared to the easy naturalism of Holden, who has the least flashy role but is arguably the best thing in it. He subtly downplays the eagerness which Bernie transfers his own marital resentments on to the Elgin’s marriage, just as he lets Bernie’s growing frustrations with both Elgins develop naturally. He even manages to make Bernie’s late intense attraction to Georgie not seem like it comes as wildly out of left field as the script make it.

The Country Girl works through its melodramatic events with a largely predictable series of beats, as Elgin goes from sweating through rehearsals to smashing up a bar, to drying out in his dressing room. The photography adds a lot of atmosphere, with shadow-cast moments adding a real sense of oppression to the film’s gloomy progress (there is a particularly lovely shot of Kelly buried in the shadows in the theatre wings). There are affecting moments, even if the film lays many of them on somewhat heavily with a trowel. But Seaton’s dialogue is strong, even if it is somewhat melodramatic and his directing is sound.

And you can’t deny the effort he gained from the two stars, even if their performances are so earnestly committed that it becomes a little overbearing to see the Acting in action. It’s fascinating to wonder how much more effective The Country Girl might have been if it had not played almost all of its emotional beats so heavily to the max, but had trusted us to discover the emotion for ourselves.

Mister Roberts (1955)

Dry and stagey version of a theatre hit, that never quite comes to life cinematically

Director: John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy (Ward Bond, Joshua Logan)

Cast: Henry Fonda (Lt Jnr Gd Doug Roberts), James Cagney (Lt Cmd Morton), William Powell (Doc), Jack Lemmon (Ensign Frank Pulver), Betsy Palmer (Lt Ann Girard), Ward Bond (CPO Dowdy), Ken Curtis (Dolan), Philip Carey (Mannion), Nick Adams (Reber), Perry Lopez (Rodrigues), Patrick Wayne (Bookser), Harry Carey Jnr (Stefanowski)

Henry Fonda hadn’t made a film for almost seven years, spending the intervening years collecting garlands on Broadway: and a lot of those were for his over 1,000 performances of Mister Roberts. When the hit play came to the screen, he was the only choice (even if Fonda looked a bit long-the-tooth for a junior lieutenant). Fonda was less than happy with the film – despite its financial success and Oscar nominations – and it’s easy to see why. This is an uneasy mix of awkwardly opened up filmic sweep and stagy set up, with the original’s saltiness watered down to gain Naval co-operation.

Fonda is Lt Jnr Grade Doug Roberts, second-in-command of naval cargo ship Reluctant (known as the Bucket). It’s 1945 and the ship is under the tyrannical command of Lt Commander Morton (James Cagney), a lazy placeman riding Robert’s organised shirttails to career success. That’s why he’s unwilling to grant Roberts’ wish to be transferred to a combat ship so he can do his bit. Roberts is the buffer between Morton and the crew, Morton taking any opportunity he to impose his Bligh-like authority through punishments. How will the power struggle between the two men play out?

The most interesting thing about Mister Roberts is the immense turmoil of its making, burning through no less than four directors. Ford butted heads with Fonda (never the easiest guy in the world), who felt he knew far the material better than Ford. This eventually led to a punch-up and Ford hitting the bottle big-time before he was sent to a sanatorium. Ward Bond took over before Mervyn LeRoy was shipped in. LeRoy claimed to have directed over 90% of the film (allegedly in Ford’s style), before he too was replaced by Logan, the original Broadway director, who only didn’t get the job in the first place because Fonda had also fallen out with him. Logan felt the recut script ripped the heart out of the play and, like Fonda, that the film was not a patch on the original.

This chaos perhaps explains why this feels like such a bland and stagey affair. There is the odd widescreen shot of Reluctant puffing through the seas, or Fonda surveying the panorama. But these are outweighed by static camera set-ups of a sound-stage recreation of the ship. Scenes play out in angles that seem to basically replicate the way they were set on stage (most strikingly, a scene where the crew stare out at the nurses on the island through binoculars – you can almost picture the sailors peering out into the stalls). It’s the worst type of ‘opened-out’ film adaptations, where the opening-out is restricted solely to the odd widescreen shot of a vista while the rest of the film is shot and staged like it’s still in a theatre.

On top of this, Fonda and Logan was probably right that a lot of the play’s energy was lost when its harsher beats were trimmed. It’s not a surprise the saltier dialogue was thrown overboard. But Morton was changed from a Queeg-like bully into a broader, comic character, a ludicrous martinet whose obsession with his palm-tree pot-plant was dialled up to the max. James Cagney gives a broad performance, either frothing at the mouth or fainting away in fury. He’s such an absurd figure, he can’t be seen as a genuine threat, possibly because the Navy could not abide the idea that a bully who placed his own career before his crew’s wellbeing could ever land a command.

It rather mutes the more satirical points about the unpredictability of rigid command structures. You can still see beats of it in the film’s recurrent, slightly bizarre, ‘now hear this’ announcements over the intercom (a surprisingly M*A*S*H-ish touch) or in some of the more mad-cap destructive elements of Lemmon’s slacker Ensign Pulver. Just as the crew’s poor moral and willingness to find ever more obscure reasons to shirk duty might have played more into criticism of the domineering navy regime on stage. Not here.

With a slightly neutered content and flat direction, what Mister Roberts relies on is the strength of its performances. It certainly got a trio of legends and an up-and-comer destined for great things. A very fine Fonda, with that long experience, gives his trademarked decency mixed with a sensitivity for his men and bitterness at his commander. It plays out with an indulgent fatherly regard for his men and a subtle cheek for his captain. His disgust for Morton is tangible as is his emotion at the crew’s regard.

Equally good is William Powell, in his final role, an archly dry commentator on events, as playful forging whisky as he is quietly amused at the crew’s wild attempts to escape their duty. Jack Lemmon Oscar-winning turn as Pulver was an early display of both the manic comic energy, tinged with an adolescent sexual excitement, that he bought to several later roles. But he also manages to find some genuine moments of emotional depth. Cagney blisters in a 2D role, but few do bombast better.

But Mister Roberts frequently feels a little slow and dry, and it’s never quite funny or zany enough for what it’s trying to do. Not surprising, since Ford and LeRoy are hardly anyone’s idea of satirical, screwball directors. When it does go for zany energy, it ends up making its characters look like dicks – the crew’s shore leave (after a year on ship) is clearly meant to be amusing (Fonda gives them a ‘boys-will-by-boys’ smile). But the actions described (trashing an ambassador’s house, ripping clothes off women, turning a dinner party into a brawl) sounds more like drunken louts than charming rogues (hard not to feel Morton isn’t more than a little bit right to be furious).

It says a lot that the broad comedy lands less well than the serious moments – especially as the film’s sudden tragic ending is its most effective moment. The stagy, dry production feels like it has made only the most awkward transition to screen – I suspect Fonda was right to wish more people had seen it on stage than on celluloid.

Hedda (2025)

An imaginative Ibsen reworking that works brilliantly in some places but doesn’t make enough of an impact

Director: Nia DaCosta

Cast: Tessa Thompson (Hedda Gabler), Nina Hoss (Eileen Lovborg), Imogen Poots (Thea Clifton), Tom Bateman (George Tesman), Nicholas Pinnock (Judge Roland Brack), Finbar Lynch (Professor Greenwood), Mirren Mack (Tabita Greenwood), Jamael Westman (David), Saffron Hocking (Jane Ji), Kathryn Hunter (Bertie)

Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is pretty much the closest you get to a female Hamlet: complex, multi-layered, torn between envy and vulnerability, selfishness and frustrated yearning, independence and stupefying domesticity. y Nia DaCosta’s intriguing adaptation mixes in some fascinating ideas but never quite lands with the force and energy it needs to really impact the audience.

DaCosta moves the action from nineteenth-century Sweden to a house party in 1950s England, in the palatial home of debt-ridden academic George Tesman (Tom Bateman) and his austerely cool wife Hedda Gabler (Tessa Thompson). George is making a desperate pitch for a professorship to repay his debts to sinister Judge Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), who seems more interested in getting payment-in-kind from Hedda.

Hedda affects a distanced, disinterested manner – until the arrival of her old flame Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss), with her new partner Thea (Imogen Poots) in tow. Eileen and Thea have written a revelatory new book (currently only one draft copy exists) that places Eileen in the driving seat for gaining George’s professorship. Shaken, Hedda instigates a campaign to destroy Eileen, based either on desperation, deep jealousy or self-loathing, that plays out during the increasingly debauched, night-long party.

There are so many good ideas in Hedda, it’s disappointing that the final product is so curiously uninvolving. DaCosta’s film, sharply directed with a lovely ‘bright young things’ flair mixed with some Du Maurier gothic menace, looks fabulous and confidently mixes intense character study with illicit sex, dramatic gunshots and desperate fisticuffs. The transplanting of Ibsen’s original to a new setting is surprisingly smooth and the idea to compress the whole story (which takes place over a couple of days in the original) to a single night does at points give it a propulsive energy, especially as characters’ inhibitions increasingly fracture under the influence of drink.

The best innovation in Hedda is translating Hedda’s old lover Eilert Lovborg into Eileen. This switch opens up a rich vein of possibilities which the film embraces in its most successful moments. Hedda has turned her back on her own sexuality to claim a place in society: a sexuality Eileen flaunts in front of her male peers, her costuming an intriguing fusing of styles. Hedda’s envy of Thea taking her place now has the double tinge of knowing that Thea – who has left her family and become more of an intellectual partner than Hedda ever was – is also a braver, more committed person than Hedda.

It also blows open even further the cosy, drawing-room, closed-shop nature of this world, where George and the peers he is so desperate to appeal to withdraw to private rooms for clubbable drinks and smutty gossip about girls. Professor Greenwood (a reptilian Finbar Lynch) drags around a trophy wife (Mirren Mack) whom he treats with indifference right up until exploding in fury at her cuckolding him. Judge Brack (a vilely smooth Nicholas Pinnock) alternates between patronising women and looming like a predator over them. George stands out as a genuinely decent man here, respectful of Eileen and uncomfortable with overt masculinity, but even he still sees Hedda’s place as tending to hearth and home rather than a true equal.

This theme of sexual politics comes roaring into life thanks to Nina Hoss’ magnetically charismatic performance, embodying Eileen with a swaggering, intellectual confidence that hides a deeper fragility that’s only just keeping her on the wagon. A wagon she spectacularly falls off (due to Hedda’s prodding) in an attempt to show she can be one of the boys, culminating in an attempt to barnstormingly dominate a room, drunkenly unaware (despite George’s efforts to warn her) that her lake-water soaked shirt is clinging suggestively to her body to the slathering delight of her male audience.

Hoss’ performance is brilliant, collapsing from assured distance, via frantic nervous energy, into wild-eyed desperate vulnerability. Charting an opposite course is Imogen Poots, very good indeed as Thea who feels like one of life’s doormats (not helped by the hideously unflattering dress Hedda insists she wears) but who reveals deep strength of character and determination. The film’s finest sequences revolve around these two, who offer the film’s most intriguing and best-explored modernisation. Credit also to Nicholas Pinnock’s marvellously predatory Judge Brack and Tom Bateman’s decent-but-timid George, a man so sheltered that raucous sex jokes fly obliviously over his head.

It’s unfortunate that the film stumbles more with its portrayal of Hedda. I’m not sure Hedda manages to really grasp the conflicting depths of its lead character. Tessa Thompson gives a committed performance, but it’s hard not to feel the English accent vocally constrains her (why not just let her use her own?) and the film rarely gives her a chance to fully explore the character’s depths. We should feel there is an explosive cauldron of feelings under Hedda’s surface, but only rarely (if at all) does the film ever manage to pierce it, rarely getting to grasp with the character’s conflicting impulses, settling more for an Iago-like drive to destroy, based on jealousy.

Hedda also misses a slight trick, I feel, by not playing up Hedda’s potential outsider nature in 1950s England via her race. (There is a throwaway comment on her ‘dusky skin’, but in a film of colour-blind casting, with the most powerful character played by a Black actor, it doesn’t land.) And making Hedda a bohemian contemptuous of high society doesn’t sit well with her obsession with her father’s status, or her desire to control her high surroundings.

It contributes to a film that never quite manages to come to life as it should, because we never quite understand our lead character, whose coldness and distance extends to us as well as the characters. In a film awash with good ideas, it’s a fatal flaw, and Hedda never quite catches fire emotionally or thematically as it should, because Hedda herself is curiously underserved and under-explored.

PS: Years ago, I played George Tesman in a production of Hedda Gabler where Tom Bateman played Eilert Loveborg. He was (of course!) brilliant, and it was a personal delight to see him as Tesman here (as well as a little odd, I won’t lie!), just one of many perfectly judged performances he’s given in his career.

Children of a Lesser God (1986)

Clumsy Pygmalion drama that very uncomfortably mixes its messages during its obvious plot points

Director: Randa Haines

Cast: William Hurt (James Leeds), Marlee Matlin (Sarah Norman), Piper Laurie (Mrs. Norman), Philip Bosco (Dr Curtis Franklin), Allison Gompf (Lydia), Bob Hiltermann (Orin)

Adapted from a hit Broadway play, Children of a Lesser God (its title plucked from Tennyson’s The Passing of Arthur – though, like much of the film, I’ve no idea what point it’s trying to make) was hailed as a landmark in disability representation. Truthfully, it’s possibly slightly more retrograde than Johnny Belinda (made almost forty years earlier) and certainly not as good a film, its plodding plot and confused message not salvaged by two excellent performances.

James Leeds (William Hurt) is a charismatic teacher, newly arrived at a New England school for the deaf. His mission is to encourage the kids to speak, as he’s convinced they will struggle in the world on sign language alone. He becomes fascinated with the school’s janitor Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin), a recent student, whipper-smart but defiantly silent, speaking only through fluent, witty sign language. Determined to teach her to speak and open-up a panorama of new opportunities for her, James and Sarah start a passionate relationship that increasingly flounders on the language barrier between them and Sarah’s own insecurities.

The positives first: both leads are excellent. Hurt is dynamic, engaging and charming – so much so it’s easy to overlook what a dick his character is (of which more later). Hurt accompanies all his dialogue with fluent sign language (no mean feat) and convinces utterly as the sort of maverick teacher who wins minds while carrying a prickly ego from uninterrupted success and validation. Opposite him, Matlin (still the youngest winner of the Best Actress Oscar) is electric: defiant, unaccommodating, sensual and damaged but able to burst into a radiant smile of confidence. Matlin makes her prickly but sensitive, defensive but determined and passion bursts out of her.

These two leads display obvious chemistry (although Matlin’s later recounting of Hurt’s serious domestic abuse during their relationship, barely denied by him, casts an uncomfortable shadow over the film). This lifts an otherwise straightforward film. It’s awash with expected plot points and beats from a meet-cute, to growing passion, falling outs and reconciliation. Aside from a few under-water shots (Sarah feeling completely comfortable under water, where her hearing is the same as everyone’s), it’s flatly filmed (it’s not a surprise Haines lost out a Best Director slot to David Lynch for Blue Velvet) and would not have looked out of place as a TV movie-of-the-week.

However, it’s main issues are the plays it makes for representation, while presenting deafness as an obstacle where the onus is on the deaf people themselves to fit in as much as possible. For a film about two people struggling to find a middle-ground between sound and silence, it never once dares us to experience the world as Sarah does. From its insistent score onwards, sound is an ever-present. None of Matlin’s dialogue is subtitled (she speaks aloud only once), with all of it translated by Hurt. For a film about finding common ground, its not interested in letting us experience even a taste of Sarah’s world.

Would it have killed them to have one scene where, perhaps, we walked around the school hearing what Sarah hears (nothing)? Or a scene where James and Sarah speak only through sign, with captioned translation? Instead, without really realising it, the film largely vindicates James’ position that not being able to speak is an abnormality Sarah is sticking to out of wilful, self-damaging stubbornness, rather than a choice she is entitled to make to engage with the world on her terms.

Unpack this stuff, and suddenly the whole film is a confusing mess of unclear positions and perspectives. James’ maverick teacher – in true Dead Poet’s style he wins the kids over by being unstuffy – is peddling a message that the deaf kids would be better off, if they became as much like him as possible. The film never once comments on James ignoring the one student in his class immune to his charm, essentially exiling him from his ‘in crowd’ during class. Is this great teaching? James has an unattractive messianic complex and a large part of his initial interest in Sarah is based on an arrogant belief that he can ‘save’ her from life as janitor, expecting her gratitude in return.

This Pygmalion like set-up quickly demonstrates it has way less insight about the self-occupied arrogance of its teacher than Shaw. It becomes clear to Sarah, that her successes (and the successes of James’ students, who under his tutelage perform a song-and-dance routine at parents day) are seen as his successes. When she wows James’ colleagues at a poker night with her wit and skill, they praise him (right in front of her), which he soaks up with a smug pleasure. The film never quite puts these dots together, or sees the irony in James’ bored disengagement with her deaf friends or his giving up on explaining Bach to her.

Worse than this, James ignores her early comment that she doesn’t want to be made to speak (she tells him that, as a teenager, she used sex to silence boys who pushed her to talk). Despite his vows, he increasingly, insistently demands she speaks, and fails to recognise when she resorts to using sex to try and shut him up. The film never pulls him up his selfishness and pushy imposing of his views, its sympathy for Sarah not changing its quiet view that her own problems are a major brick in the wall between them.

The film doesn’t really question James’ arrogance, because it can’t shake its habit of viewing her a problem to be solved. It effectively endorses James’ view that she should adjust and change as much as possible. Is it really wrong for Sarah to want to live on her own terms, not other people’s? To refuse to perform as James demands?

In fact, much as the film wants us to dislike Philip Bosco’s rules-bound obstructive headmaster, he makes two very valid points: one, it’s not for James to decide what’s best for Sarah and it’s not appropriate for James to fuck someone who is both a junior member of staff and (effectively) his student. Children of a Lesser God doesn’t even try to explore the moral complexities of any of this, instead settling for the idea that a disability can be overcome if someone works hard, overcomes their own issues and defers to an inspirational teacher. Combine that with its plodding, unoriginal story and you’ve got a film that hasn’t aged well.

On Golden Pond (1981)

Sentimental drama, sickly-sweet, which owes any success it is to its legendary leads

Director: Mark Rydell

Cast: Katharine Hepburn (Ethel Thayer), Henry Fonda (Norman Thayer), Jane Fonda (Chelsea Thayer), Doug McKeon (Billy Ray Jnr), Dabney Coleman (Dr Bill Ray)

The, admittedly luscious, score by Dave Grusin gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect, as Billy Williams’ camerawork drifts over a sun-kissed lake. On Golden Pond is an overwhelmingly sentimental film, just about lifted above its Hallmark Classic material by its legendary cast. Justified residual affection for them made this frequently mawkish, sickly-sweet film a massive box-office hit. Instigated by Jane Fonda, as a late bridge for a final reconciliation with her father Henry, it won him an Oscar 41 years after his last (and only previous) nomination.

Henry Fonda plays Norman Thayer, a curmudgeonly academic on the cusp of his 80^th birthday, whose avuncular abruptness covers a fear of death and the slow decline of his wits. Along with his supportive, sparky wife Ethel (Katharine Hepburn) he’s spending this birthday at their summer home on the shore of New England golden lake. They are joined, unexpectantly, by their marginally estranged daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) with her new boyfriend Bill (Dabney Coleman) and his thirteen-year-old son Billy (Doug McKeon) in tow. Chelsea and Bill leave for a holiday in Europe, leaving Billy behind. Can Billy and Norman find common ground, and will the presence of this young man help Norman and Chelsea find reconciliation and understanding after years of tension.

If you don’t know the answer, you’ve not seen enough movies. Pretty much every development in On Golden Pond could be jotted down correctly on a pad in advance. Of course, Norman’s hostility will melt slightly as he rediscovers something of his playful youth and vigour in the kid. Of course, Billy’s contempt for the gentle pleasures of Golden Pond will wash away as he embraces the delights of fishing, reading classic novels and playing board games under the increasingly warm surrogate parental eyes of Norman and Ethel. Of course, Chelsea’s ostentatious determination to only refer to Norman by his name will eventually see her calling him ‘Dad’. Of course, Norman will finally allow himself to confess his love for his daughter.

All these inevitable emotional plot developments are hit with assured smoothness in Rydell’s straight-forward film, perfectly packaged for mass appeal. Every character is an archetype: the grouchy old guy with a heart of gold, the loving wife who devotes herself to exasperatingly caring for her husband and smoothing over those he offends, the prickly daughter whose resentment hides her desperate need for her father’s love… You could argue the film’s very predictability is the secret sauce behind its success.

It can be safely consumed as a heart-warming fable. So much so, it’s easy to miss how biased the film is in favour of the older generation. So sentimental is the eye it casts over Norman, so forgiving and sympathetic is it to his quiet raging against the dying of the light, that it effectively gives him a pass for any responsibility for the coldness between him and his daughter, partially born from his domineering expectations and demands of her.

When Chelsea complains to Esther about her father’s coldness, distance and high standards, she’s roundly told she should have seen past this to the love her father buried deep down. (Esther even slaps her for questioning it!). This is a film that firmly states the younger generation should adjust to fit in with the older. Chelsea should pull herself together, stop whining, and get over the fact her Dad never really told her how he feels: that, effectively, the problem they have is her expectations rather than his failures. It’s fitting with a film that, however charmingly it does it, also sees Billy adapting and changing to better fit in with the Thayers rather than any vice versa. God knows what it would make of something like Five Easy Pieces.

The film’s patronising, one-sided view of generational conflict and its soppy sentimentality would make it unbearable, if it wasn’t for the performers at its heart. Henry Fonda, with less than a year to live, takes a cliched character and invests Norman with a richness and depth of personality that is far more than the film deserves. Fonda’s precise diction and ability to turn those blue eyes cold is perfect for Norman’s grouching, but when those same eyes collapse into panicked fear (such as when Norman gets lost in woods he has walked all his life) it’s as moving as his attempt to shrug off his failing memory.

Fonda’s perfectly delivers both the irritation and hidden fear when he stares at photos of himself and his younger family and plaintively asks who they are. He makes the bond with Doug McKeon’s Billy (also excellent) genuinely rather sweet, these two kindred souls shooting the breeze and catching fish like life-long buddies (Fonda fills Norman here with an almost teenage sense of naughtiness). It’s a rich, charming performance.

He’s expertly supported by Katharine Hepburn, who brings her customary spark, fierce intelligence, take-no-nonsense assurance and dry wit to Esther. Truthfully the role, for which she won a record-breaking fourth Oscar, is almost identical to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Once again, she is the dutiful but loving wife, smoothing over the feathers her husband disrupts and speaking home truths to her disappointed child. Hepburn could probably do this standing on her head, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t nail it. Jane Fonda, a far more generous performer than she gets credit for, plays Chelsea with such emotional commitment it can’t help but pull some heartstrings. Even Dabney Coleman is restrained and gentle.

Of course, a lot of this success also comes from the deeply blurred lines between truth and fiction that abound in On Golden Pond. It’s no secret to anyone watching that the Norman-Chelsea relationship has multiple parallels with that of Henry-Jane. Jane Fonda had planned the film as a tribute to her father (much to the disappointment of James Stewart who dreamed of playing it), and when the duelling father and daughter quietly reconcile, it’s impossible to not also see the real actors themselves building bridges after a lifetime of disagreements. It’s a greater emotional impact than the actual film itself and surely contributed to its success.

On Golden Pond is less successful on its own merits. An overly sentimental film, with a golden-eyed regard for the dignity and decency of the older generation, where inter-generational conflict is resolved with a few gentle words and a backflip off a diving board. Remove the actors – and the emotional truth behind its making – and you have a very slight, predictable and manipulative movie.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Excellent acting almost saves a neutered, inverted version of Williams’ powerhouse play

Director: Richard Brooks

Cast: Elizabeth Taylor (Maggie Pollitt), Paul Newman (‘Brick’ Pollitt), Burl Ives (‘Big Daddy’ Pollitt), Jack Carson (‘Gooper’ Pollitt), Judith Anderson (‘Big Mama’ Pollitt), Madeleine Sherwood (Mae Flynn ‘Sister Woman’ Pollitt), Larry Gates (Dr Baugh), Vaughn Taylor (Deacon Davies)

There is a fun little anecdote of Tennessee Williams running into a crowd of people lined around the block to catch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at their local multiplexes and loudly begging them “Go home! This movie will set the industry back 50 years!” You can sort of see why Williams was a bit pissed. It’s a miracle really that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof works at all. The studio snapped up this Broadway mega-hit and promptly instructed Richard Brooks to remove all the content that worked with a bunch of New York Times readers, but wasn’t going to fly in a mid-West fleapit. What we end up with is a curious, mis-aligned, neutered work that arguably inverts several of Williams’ points and is reliant on its incredibly strong, charismatic acting to work.

Brick (Paul Newman) is a former College sports star, now adrift in life, trapped in an unhappy marriage with Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) who he resents and blames for the suicide of close friend Skipper. All Maggie’s attempts to rediscover any love is met with cold, blank disinterest as Brick hits the bottle big-time. Maggie keeps up the front of wedding bliss, as she is determined they will win their share of the inheritance from Brick’s father ‘Big Daddy’ (Burl Ives) who believes he’s merely under-the-weather, but is in fact dying. This news is also being kept from his devoted (but privately barely tolerated by Big Daddy) wife Big Mama (Judith Anderson), while Brick’s brother’s Gooper (Jack Carson) and his wife Mae Flynn (Madeline Sherwood) makes aggressive pitchs to cement Big Daddy’s fortune for themselves.

This simmering Broadway adaptation of a Southern family weighted down by lies (or mendacity as they love to call it), concealments and barely disguised resentments, was a smash hit but a very mixed film. It’s weighed down by both too much respect of the theatrical nature of the play, and too little interest in its actual message. Richard Brooks’ production largely restricts itself to interspersing wider shots with some reaction shots and sticks very much to its ‘same location for each act’ set-up. It’s a surprisingly conservative and safe re-staging of a hit play.

Despite Brooks’ liberal re-writing of the dialogue (of which more later), it remains a very theatrical rather than cinematic piece, largely devoid of imaginative editing or photography. The attempts to ‘open up’ the piece introduced by Brooks feel pointless or add very little (such as witnessing the accident where Brick breaks his leg or travelling to the airport to see the arrival of Big Daddy’s plane). Compared to the inventive and dynamic use of single-location shooting in Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof feels considerably more stately and reserved, and is far less successful in using the tricks of cinema to successfully build tension and conflict.

What it shares however with 12 Angry Men is the electric acting. Elizabeth Taylor gives one of her finest performances, her Maggie bubbling with sexual and emotional frustration, reduced to hurling physical and verbal punches at Brick in an attempt to get any sort of emotional rise out of him. She makes Maggie, for all her desperation and confusion, surprisingly sympathetic. Taylor manages to be both selfish and domineering while also showing how broken up Maggie is with shame and guilt. It’s a detailed, intense, passionate performance.

It also works perfectly opposite Paul Newman’s brooding intensity as Brick. This is the handsome, blue-eyed legend inverting his charisma into something insular, at times merely starring in self-loathing into the middle distance as other speak at him, only rarely rising to let rip at others with contempt and fury. Newman is a force of quiet, emotional anger, even if (stripped of his character’s primary motivation) he comes across at times like a spoilt child who never really grew up rather than the tortured man trapped in a lie of a life, that Williams intended (Brooks even frames him at one point with a high-school football of himself behind him, his past literally haunting him).

Burl Ives would certainly have won an Oscar for this, if he hadn’t won that year for The Big Country. Recreating his Tony Award winning role, he’s a whirligig force of nature as Big Daddy, bullishly insistent on getting his own way, shrugging off with irritation his wife’s affection (an effectively unsettled Judith Anderson) and hiding his own fear at oncoming death in a relentless pursuit of the future. Ives also nails Big Daddy’s outstanding late speeches, investing them with a deep sense of melancholy and sadness under the bombast and strength. It’s a great performance. Jack Carson is perfectly, anonymously uninteresting as ‘other son’ Gooper and Madeline Sherwood hits the beats of shrill hostility she’s asked for as his wife Mae Flynn.

That these performances work so well is a tribute to the underlying strength of a play that has been radically, almost disastrously, lobotomised by Brooks into something that flattens, blurs and (at points) radically inverts the intention. Putting it bluntly, Williams’ original used Brick’s unspoken (perhaps even subconscious) homosexual attraction to Skipper as the root cause of his disastrous marriage and booze-laden depression. Maggie, all too-aware of her husband’s sexual orientation, fumes in frustration at his lack of interest in making the inheritance-required babies. Even Big Daddy suspects this massive unspoken secret at the heart of a family. The fact this remains unspoken to the end, that the characters carry on with the fake fiction of the Pollitt dynasty is a damning indictment of the hypocrisy of American family life.

That wasn’t going to wash in Hollywood. No hint of Brick’s homosexuality could be allowed: in fact, Newman’s heteronormative virility is repeatedly stressed (at one point he even embraces Maggie’s dressing gown in romantic longing). It weakens both characters – for all the skill of Newman and Taylor, it makes both characters shallower, two people letting sulks and pride stand between happiness, rather than two people trapped into a doomed cycle. The film resolutely associates happiness with love and duty to the family unit, emphatically not what Williams’ play suggested.

No wonder he was pissed. A daring play about Southern family hypocrisy and buried secrets, where the burden of the family is a deadweight crushing people is turned into a straight (in every sense) celebration of it. It makes the play a conservative, reassuring lie, as much as a mendacity as the characters talk about. So maybe Williams was right to berate that crowd. Still it pissed Brooks off mightily: he pithily retorted it was a bit rich of Williams to kick up such fuss over a film which made him very wealthy. I guess at least there Brooks makes a strong point.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

Handsomely staged and quietly influential production, full of invention and good ideas

Director: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle

Cast: James Cagney (Bottom), Joe E. Brown (Francis Flute), Dick Powell (Lysander), Jean Muir (Helena), Victor Jory (Oberon), Verree Teasdale (Hippolyta), Hugh Herbert (Snout), Anita Louise (Titania), Frank McHugh (Quince), Ross Alexander (Demetrius), Ian Hunter (Theseus), Mickey Rooney (Puck), Olivia de Havilland (Hermia), Dewey Robinson (Snug), Grant Mitchell (Egeus), Arthur Treacher (Epilogue)

It says something about Hollywood’s back-and-forth relationship with Shakespeare, that Reinhardt and Dieterle’s film can still make a case for being one of its finest Hollywood Shakespeare films. What’s fascinating about it is how much attitudes towards it have changed over time. Opening to a chorus of sniffs from the critics (“It should never have been filmed!”), horrified about the blasphemy of the Bard on celluloid, the things praised at the time now feel the stuffiest while the elements criticised feel fresh and dynamic. Personally, it’s crazy mix of genres, eras, comedic styles and dramatic tone feels like the sort of thing Shakespeare (a consummate showman who spoke in poetry) might have enjoyed.

It came about because Jack Warner wanted a bit of class. Max Reinhardt, internationally famous avant-garde theatre director, as part of Warner’s power thruple: direction by Reinhardt, music by Mendelssohn, words by Shakespeare! Reinhardt had directed a lavish production at the Hollywood Bowl (which also featured Rooney as Puck and de Havilland as Hermia), that would form the basis of his film, incorporating ballet and impressive visual effects. William Dieterle, was bought in to translate Reinhardt’s vision to film (since it quickly became clear Reinhardt didn’t know how to make a movie).

We get an MND that mixes farcical comedy with a dark, sensuous energy. Athen’s forest was transformed by Hal Mohr’s Oscar-winning photography into a glittering fantasy land, created with a mixture of superimposition and miles of cellophane wrapped around the perfectly-recreated trees to reflect the studio lights in a shimmering dance. But in this, is a fairy world of danger and chaos: Reinhardt’s pioneered the interpretation of Puck (played with malicious gusto by Mickey Rooney) as a fire-lighting child, revelling in the chaos his actions cause. Rooney (or rather his double, as Rooney broke a leg early in production) skips and sways, laughing maniacally, tormenting the lovers (possibly even controlling their words and actions), unleashing dark forces of the night.

The film is full of such dark forces – a surprise to critics who saw Dream as a gentle comedy. The ballet sequences, used by Reinhardt to visually demonstrate Oberon’s and Titania’s power to manipulate the environment around them, feature demonic dancers who wouldn’t look out of place in Faust, creepy music-playing goblins and a constant sense of unknowable power. Victor Jory – highly praised at the time, although his precise, poetic reading feels austere and lacking in feeling today – is a darkly imperious Oberon, with barely a trace of warmth to him. (Anita Louise’s Titania also takes a traditional line, speaking with a slightly irritating sing-song that should serve the poetry but instead drains it of life.)

You suspect, if he could have got away with it, Reinhardt might have allowed a trace of bestiality to enter into Titania’s romance with the transformed Bottom. As it is, he settles for Titania snatching a coronet from the Indian boy (nicely introduced early, to cement the split between the two fairy monarchs) who bursts into tears, increasing the feeling that the fairies are inconsistent, temporary creatures, perfectly willing to drop previously treasured people for whoever else captures their attention.

Lavish spectacle runs throughout a play that feels highly indebted to Raphael and the other Renaissance masters. Reinhardt has no problem switching styles: Theseus’ arrival is staged like an Ancient Roman pageant, before settling into a Renaissance style court while the Mechanicals could have stepped straight out of Brueghel. Again, it’s a playing around with style and location that looks very modern today but short-circuited reverentially literal critics at the time. Reinhardt even plays with the idea of Hippolyta being a less-than-willing partner for Theseus (she appears defiantly restrained in the opening scene), although this is largely benched for later scenes.

The lavish opening also shows the production’s ability to balance comedy and drama. Alongside the traditionalist grandiosity, we have low comedy from both the lovers and mechanicals. In a fast-cut, skilfully assembled array of moments (surely Dieterle’s work), the relationships between the four lovers are expertly displayed and mined for comic energy (particularly Lysander’s and Demetrius’ private competition to sing loudest) as are those between the mechanicals (from Bottom’s enthusiasm to Quince’s frustration at the terminal stupidity of Flute).

The mechanicals are one of the greatest divergence in critical opinion between then and now. To critics at the time it was a jaw-dropping mistake to cast Cagney and a host of film comedians in Shakespeare – surely these were roles for the likes of Gielgud? Everything from their delivery to the posture was lambasted for being crude and too damn American for a genre considered the exclusive preserve of the well-spoken likes of Jory and Hunter. However, the energy and naturalness of these actors – and the consummate comic timing they pull out of their roles – is one of the film’s greatest touches.

Cagney was never afraid to look beat-up or ridiculous, and he revels as an explosive ball of energy as Bottom. He flings himself, with the same energy as Bottom, into over-enunciated voices and grand displays of ‘bad acting’, parodying a host of styles from classical to pantomime to stage comedy. Cagney also makes him sweetly naïve and childishly literal, while his gentle, polite mystification about being treated like a king by the fairies seems rather sweet. The other mechanicals are also genuinely excellent, doing one of the hardest things: making Shakespearean comedy work on screen. Joe E Brown is hilarious as a supernaturally dim Flute, barely able to remember what gender he is playing; Hugh Herbert’s Snout has an infectious nervous giggle he can’t control, Frank McHugh’s Quince parodies directors like DeMille. Each of them contributes to a genuinely funny Pyramus and Thisbe that closes the film.

It’s more funny than the sometimes-forced banter between the lovers, not helped by a far too broad performance by Dick Powell (who later claimed he didn’t understand a word he was saying) that makes Lysander somewhere between a buffoon and an egotist. Olivia de Havilland (perhaps not surprisingly) emerges best here as a heartfelt Hermia, although the quarrel between the lovers is perhaps the least well staged sequence in the film (Reinhardt and Dieterle resort to all four of them at points speaking their lines at the same time, as if wanting to get the scene over and done with).

But MND is awash with other touches of cinematic and interpretative invention, it’s darkish vision of the Fairy world (with superimposition and ballet interjections giving it a darkly surreal touch) as influential as it’s haphazard approach to place and setting. Its comic performances come alive with real energy, devoid of the more stately approach from others. Above all, MND feels like an actual interpretation of its source material, rather than just a respectful staging – and its influence played out over decades of productions to come. Overlooked for too long, it’s a fine and daring piece of film Shakespeare, far better than it has a right to be.

The Taming of the Shrew (1967)

Burton and Taylor are perfect casting in this rollicking adaptation of Shakespeare’s most difficult comedy

Director: Franco Zeffirelli

Cast: Elizabeth Taylor (Kate), Richard Burton (Petruchio), Cyril Cusack (Grumio), Michael Hordern (Baptista Minola), Alfred Lynch (Tranio), Alan Webb (Gremio), Michael York (Lucentio), Natasha Pyne (Bianca), Victor Spinetti (Hortensio), Roy Holder (Biondello), Mark Dignam (Vincentio), Vernon Dobtcheff (Pedant), Bice Valori (Widow)

There’s a reason why the poster screamed “The motion picture they were made for!” Who else could play literature’s most tempestuous couple, than the world’s most tempestuous couple? After all, they rolled into this straight off the success of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and, say what you like, a knock-about piece of Shakespearean farce is certainly more fun than two hours of Edward Albee. So, Burton and Taylor turned up in Italy, entourage in hand, to bring The Taming of the Shrew to life in a gorgeous explosion of grand sets and wonderfully detailed costumes.

The Taming of the Shrew actually translates well to the screen – and Zeffirelli’s high-octane style. Odd to think now, for a film soaked in elaborate period setting, that in the 60s Zeffirelli’s style was seen as border-line sacrilegious to the Bard. He actually escaped with less opprobrium from the critics than he faced for cutting two-thirds of Romeo and Juliet a year later, since most seemed to think Shrew was less of a holy text. Not that it stopped a lot of critics reckoning Zeffirelli should focus more on executing every pentameter to perfection and less on gags and visual story-telling.

But actually, that’s perfect for a story that was always a raucous farce at heart – so much so, even the original play presents it as a play-within-a-play told to a drunken Christopher Sly (cut here). The bawdiness feels fresh out of Chaucer and Boccaccio, a parade of people in period costumes slapping thighs, roaring with laughter, double taking and enjoying a series of cheeky jokes (did Pasolini watch this before making his lusty adaptations?). Padua is a city of sin, with prostitutes openly advertising their wares (and later, clearly, invited to Bianca’s wedding) and a wife-stealer is in the stocks.

Zeffirelli’s Shrew is full of rowdy wildness – in a nod to the cut Sly framing device, Padua is in the midst of a feast of fools, students turning a choral sing-along into a drunken celebration. Kate and Petruchio’s high-octane gunning for each other, feels fitting for a location where everyone is careering wildly towards the target of their immediate emotions, either horny beyond belief, desperate to marry off daughters or furious at supposed crimes or betrayals.

The age-old question you have when staging Shrew is what to do about its fundamental misogyny (and it’s hard not to argue, much as the bard’s defenders have tried, not to see it as a play deeply rooted in the patriarchy). Zeffirelli’s solution is an intriguing one: his Shrew is enigmatic, with Kate’s motivations, feelings and reasonings often left cleverly open to interpretation. It’s also helped, of course, by the natural chemistry between the two leads. If there is one thing we all know, it’s that Burton and Taylor were really into each other and drove each other up the wall. What Shrew does here is take that sexual force and exuberance of its leads and balances that with a subtle unreadable quality to Kate that leaves the relationship’s power-balance just open enough to interpretation.

In addition, the film makes clear Kate’s behaviour is unacceptable, introduced screaming abuse from a window and smashing up all the furniture in a room in a fit of furious pique. There’s a lovely touch where Petruchio stares into his own reflection, while planning his campaign – a nice suggestion that he will mirror her behaviour to show its unacceptability (indeed, on returning to their marriage home, he’ll also twice smash up a room’s contents in a pointless display of adolescent petulance). Kate has, to put it bluntly, anger management issues and if Petruchio’s methods are extreme you can see the twisted logic.

Their first meeting sets a pacey tone that will run through the whole film. It’s a wild chase through the Baptista home, through a connected wool barn, over a roof and back again. One in which they will bellow at each other, Kate will rip up planks and bannisters to throw at him, they’ll roll in the wool (hard not to see a sexual charge here) and eventually collapse through the roof to land back in the wool. Petruchio will then announce her consent to marry with an arm twisted round her back, just as he will cut off her refusal at the altar with a kiss (the wedding scene is a neat interpolation, showing something the Bard only reports). They are in a constant pursuit of sorts from here, from the back-and-forth at Petruchio’s house, to the journey to Padua and then finally through a crowd of women at the film’s end. But where does the power lie: pursued or pursuer?

At first, of course, with the pursuer. Burton’s Petruchio is a wild-eyed force-of-nature, permanently partly sozzled (Burton spends most of the film with a pale, damp drinking sweat that was probably not acting), his tights full of holes, his manners rude (he’s basically Christopher Sly in the lead role), focused on the money he’ll get from wooing Kate. But, while he’s a powerful alpha male, it’s remarkable how the balance slowly shifts to Kate. After their arrival at his home (she, soaking wet after falling in a puddle to Petruchio’s laughter), she puts her drunken husband to bed, has the house redecorated, the servants redressed and everything arranged to her liking.

Taylor’s performance here adds to the effect. It’s an intelligent, camera-wise performance which uses looks to convey Kate’s loneliness and pain. Locked in a room before the wedding, she glances out of a window with aching sadness. She looks with gentle envy at warm friendship in others. Taylor gives a wonderfully calm, genuine delivery of the famous closing speech of wifely piety. But it’s words are undermined in two ways: firstly by the suspicion it’s partly done to show-up the jokes against her throughout the wedding, and then by Taylor’s immediate departure after kissing a finally flabbergasted Petruchio, leaving our macho hero wading through a pile of laughing women in a desperate attempt to catch-up. Who might just rule here, long term?

Zeffirelli’s film moves the Lucentio (a wide-eyed Michael York) sub-plot even further to the margins – in a neat invention, Petruchio during the first chase, keeps barging in on rooms where different sub-plot scenes are all going on at the same time. As a result, this does mean a number of first-rate actors get very little to do: Cyril Cusack’s Grumio becomes a grinning observer of the chaos, Alfred Lynch’s Tranio (after some initial fourth-wall breaking) fades into the background, Michael Hordern has little to do but look aghast as a desperate Minola, Alan Webb barely registers as a rejected suitor while after an initial sight gag (his minstrel player disguise making him look like the fifth Beatle) Victor Spinetti gets similarly fades away.

But then audiences were here for the Burton-Taylor show, and they get that in spades: framed within a medieval setting inspired by classical painting (and which features an obviously fake backdrop for its countryside exteriors). And The Taming of the Shrew is rollicking good fun, which manages to work an interesting line on the play’s troublesome sexual politics, suggesting that all but not always be as it seems. And it nails the atmosphere of rollicking fun in this ribald Shakespeare yarn.

The Dresser (1983)

One of the best films about the magic and trauma of theatre, with two powerhouse lead performances

Director: Peter Yates

Cast: Albert Finney (Sir), Tom Courtenay (Norman), Edward Fox (Oxenby), Zena Walker (Her Ladyship), Eileen Atkins (Madge), Michael Gough (Frank Carrington), Lockwood West (Geoffrey Thornton), Cathryn Harrison (Irene), Betty Marsden (Violet Manning), Shelia Reid (Lydia Gibson), Donald Eccles (Godstone), Llewellyn Rees (Brown)

For centuries British theatre was run by Actor-Managers. Stars with complete control of their companies, where they (and their wives) played the best roles – sometimes years past the point where it was still suitable – until the next generation emerged to build their own companies. The Dresser shows this world’s dying days, at the height of the war, when Sir (Albert Finney) a legendary actor is shepherding an aged company around the provinces to perform, while his health and mental sharpness teeter, Lear-like, on the edge of the abyss.

If Sir is Lear, his Fool is Norman (Tom Courtenay) his dresser. A waspishly camp man whose entire life revolves around every inch of Sir’s whims, shepherding, coaxing and bullying the man onto the stage, somewhere between a valet, son and nursemaid. Sir remains a force-of-nature, toweringly bombastic egotist and man of magnetic charisma, with an all-consuming, obsessive love for the theatre. The Dresser takes place in January 1942 in Bradford, largely during a performance of King Lear which Sir’s declining health has placed on a knife-edge. Can Norman hold Sir together to give life to Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy for the 227^th time?

The Dresser is based on Ronald Harwood’s play, which was semi-based on Harwood’s experiences as dresser then business manager to Donald Wolfit, one of the final breed of the old-school actor-managers Sir represents. (Harwood hastened to add, neither he nor Wolfit were portraits of Norman or Sir). While it’s a sometimes acidic look at the backstage politics and egos of touring theatre, it also richly celebrates the power of theatre and the momentary (and the film is unsentimental enough to show it is momentary) sense of family that can develop in theatre, that can end with that final curtain. In other words, The Dresser understands the brief, bright flame of theatre can be – and what a transformative feeling and dizzy drug it can be.

Both Sir and Norman are addicted to the grease-paint, their whole lives revolving around theatre and that elusive search for perfection. Even if Sir’s health is failing and sanity is crumbling – pre-show, Norman finds him raging in the streets of Bradford like Lear in the storm, only barely aware of who he is – ‘Dr Greasepaint’ can still briefly restore him to the man he was, spouting Shakespeare, bemoaning and relishing the huge weight of bringing art to life night-after-night. Norman is equally consumed by theatre: he can barely speak to others (such as train manager or a baker) without his conversation being littered with impenetrable theatre-speak. He’s as well-versed in Shakespeare as Sir is and flings himself into his backstage tasks with the same gusto Sir tackles a soliloquy.

These two have a symbiotic relationship: Sir for the support and dedication Norman exerts to get him on stage, Norman for the glorious world (and purpose) Sir gives him access to. Yates uses mirrors, framing and shared reflections to frequently frame these characters together, visually linking them in a Bergmanesque way as elements of the same personality. But, the relationship is never as straightforward as that, complicated by underlying feelings on both sides. Norman’s homosexuality – over-looked in a world where such feelings are a crime (another member of the company has recently been fired for what sounds like cottaging) – complicates his obsession with Sir, while Sir’s affection for Norman always has the hint of a Lord’s affection for his valet: a man he will confide in, but would never imagine inviting to dinner.

This complex interplay of both characters urgently needing the other, but with an underlying imbalance in their level of true emotional engagement is a subtle dance brilliantly handled throughout Yates’ and Harwood’s film: so much so, it is a surprise to many audiences that Sir utterly fails to mention Norman at all in his draft autobiography even though it’s about as likely as Churchill name-checking his butler in his. Sir and Norman may be partners in the same task – creating theatre – but Norman’s mistake is to see himself as an equal, something Sir never truly believes he is.

There is, however, no doubt about the partnership between the two actors. Tom Courtenay, who had played Norman on stage, is extraordinary. With his flamboyant hands and a voice divided between camp, whiny and ingratiating, constantly reaching for the bottle to power through the stress, Norman is as loyal, dutiful and comforting and he can be waspish, bitter, selfish, possessive and cruel. Courtenay can switch from coaxing Sir like a recalcitrant child, to throwing a potential rival for Sir’s attention to the wall and threatening all manner of damnation. It’s an astonishingly multi-layered performance, with Courtenay shrewd and brave enough to avoid making Norman a fully sympathetic figure but someone so soaking in desperation that even at his most self-pitying you feel for his desolation and emptiness.

Alongside him, Albert Finney is imperiously brilliant as Sir (playing a role almost 25 years older than him). Finney’s Sir is magnetic (they may grumble about him, but in person the company treat him with awe) and charismatic (his booming voice carries such power, it can even stop a departing train). But he’s also selfish, cruel, childish and intensely vulnerable. He’s got all the egotism of the actor (“The footlights are mine and mine alone. You must find what light you can.”), the productions revolve around him (he even continues to direct mid-performance, muttering instructions from Othello’s death bed). But he’s teetering, his mind crumbling, constantly looking to Norman for assurance, Finney living Sir’s fear at the approaching undiscovered country.

Both actors are extraordinary in a play that understands the addictive power of theatre. The Dresser avoids the trap of making Sir an Old Ham: in fact, the production we see (for all its old fashioned air) contains a performance of real power from Sir, rousing himself to touch something transcendent. Of all his 227 Lear’s this might be finest. Cynical technicians and wounded pilots weep openly. Thornton (Lockwood West), an ageing second-rate actor hastily promoted to Fool, talks of how the part has made him hungry for more. Oxenby (a marvellously louche Edward Fox), the youngest company member, clearly is ready for the new era (he carries a script full of bad language he longs to stage) but even he (after an initial point-blank refusal) throws himself into the backstage effort to create the storm. For all the rivalries, when the play is on, everyone briefly feels part of the same team working towards the same goal.

It’s a film with a melancholic feeling of an era coming to a close. It’s also one that punctures the character’s illusions. Sir is a star, but there are greater stars (with real knighthoods) in London; Norman may feel like his relationship with Sir is special, but Sir’s relationship with Madge (a brilliant Eileen Atkins, unflappably loyal and deeply pained under her professionalism) predates his and is more genuine. But it’s also one that understands the transformative power of live theatre. With stunning performances by Finney and Courtenay, backed by a marvellous, faultless cast it’s one of the finest films about theatre ever made.

Wicked (2024)

Hugely enjoyable and electrically filmed (sung and danced) adaptation of the classic stage musical

Director: John M. Chu

Cast: Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba Thropp), Ariana Grande (Galinda Upland), Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero Tigellar), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible), Jeff Goldblum (Wizard of Oz), Ethan Slater (Boq Woodsman), Bowen Young (Pfannee), Marissa Bode (Nessarose Thropp), Peter Dinklage (Dr Dillamond), Bronwyn James (Shenshen), Andy Nyman (Governor Thropp)

I might be the only person who missed the phenomenon of Wicked, a smash-hit musical that filled in the back story of The Wizard of Oz. Set long before the arrival of Dorothy and her march down that yellow brick road, it covers the meeting and eventual friendship of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) future Wicked Witch of the West and Galinda (Ariana Grande) future Glinda the Good, at Shiz University (a sort of Ozian Hogwarts). Wicked is a grand, visual spectacular crammed with memorable tunes and show-stopping dance numbers and it’s bought to cinematic life in vibrant, dynamic and highly enjoyable style by John M. Chu.

At Shiz, Elphaba is snubbed by all and sundry who can’t see past her green skin. Despised by her father (Andy Nyman) – who we know isn’t her true father (I wonder who it could be?) – she’s lived a life of defensive self-sufficiency. Galinda, in contrast, is effortlessly popular and has never found herself in any situation where she can’t get what she wants. But Elphaba has something Galinda wants – a natural talent for magic that makes her the protégé of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) – and circumstances end up with the two of them sharing rooms. Surprisingly, a friendship forms when these two opposites find common ground. But will this be challenged when Elphaba is called to the Emerald City to meet with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum)?

Wicked Part One covers (in almost two and half hours!) only the first act of Wicked, meaning the film culminates with the musical’s most famous number ’Defying Gravity’. The producers proudly stated this was to not compromise on character development by rushing – the more cynical might say they were motivated by double-dipping into mountains of box-office moolah. Despite this, Wicked Part 1 (despite taking pretty much as long to cover Act 1 as it takes theatres to stage the entire musical) feels surprisingly well-paced and the film itself is so energetic, charming and fun you quickly forget the fundamental financial cynicism behind it.

Wicked is directed with real verve and energy by John M. Chu – it’s easily the most purely enjoyable Hollywood musical since West Side Story and one of the most entertaining Broadway adaptations of this century. Wicked is expertly shot and very well edited, its camerawork making the many dance sequences both high-tempo and also easy to follow (Wicked avoids many musicals’ high-cutting failures that make choreography almost impossible to see). And it looks fabulous, the design embracing the bold colours and steam-punk magic of Oz.

It also perfectly casts its two leads, both of whom are gifted performers bringing passion and commitment. Cynthia Erivo’s voice is spectacular, and she taps into Elphaba’s loneliness and pain under her defensive, defiant outer core. It’s a fabulously sad-eyed performance of weary pain and Erivo beautifully conveys Elphaba’s moral outrage at the lies that underpin Oz. Just as fantastic is Ariana Grande. Grande says she had dreamed about playing Galinda since she was a kid (yup, that’s how old this musical is) – and it shows. It’s an electric, hilarious performance that embraces Galinda’s studied sweet physicality, her little bobs and flicks and blithe unawareness of her aching privilege and self-entitlement, but what Grande does stunningly well is really make you like Galinda no matter how misguidedly self-centred she is.

And she really is. Part of Wicked’s appeal is mixing Oz with Mean Girls with more than a dash of racial prejudice. Elphaba is immediately snubbed because she literally doesn’t look right (anti-green prejudice is an unspoken constant) compared to Galinda’s pink-coated, blond-haired perfectness. Galinda is Shiz’s queen bee, followed everywhere by two sycophantic acolytes (delightfully slappable performances from Bowen Young and Bronwyn James) who cheer everything she does and push Galinda to maximise her subtle hazing of the green-skinned outsider. After all, they see popularity as a zero-sum game: the more Elphaba might have, the less there must be to go around for them.

It’s not really a surprise that Elphaba has had a tough time. Oz is dripping with prejudice, racist assumptions and strict hierarchies. From the film’s opening number – ‘No one mourns the wicked’, where Munchkins wildly celebrate Elphaba’s future death – we are left in little doubt there is a culture of blaming those who are different for misfortunes. This sits alongside a purge of unwanted citizens: namely talking animals. Goat professor Dr Dillamond (a lovely vocal performance from Peter Dinklage) is subtly belittled for his goat-accent then dragged in disgrace from the school. A new professor extols the virtues of keeping frightened animals in cages. The casting of Jeff Goldblum helps with creating this genial but cruel world, his improvisational mumbling suggesting a man of arrogant, sociopathic distance under initial aw-shucks charm.

These secrets will impact the friendship between our leads. The extended runtime means it already takes a very long time for the ice between them to thaw (and, for me, their ballroom reconciliation doesn’t land with the cathartic force it needed for the transition from hostility to friendship to completely work), but the exceptional chemistry between Erivo and Grande helps sell it. What Wicked does very well though is show the fault-lines in this relationship. Galinda’s answer to all Elphaba’s problems is for her to be more like her, while Elphaba has clearly never had a real friend in her life and wants one more than anything. There is true kindness and love between them, but Elphaba remains an outsider with cause to be angry against the system while Galinda is the ultimate insider for whom the system has always worked. Wicked Part 1 does a very good job of never letting these facts escape your notice, for all the charm of an unexpected friendship.

Wicked Part 1 though is also a monstrously entertaining film. The song and dance numbers are spectacular – the pin-point choreography of ‘What Is This Feeling’ is superb, while the power ballad intensity if ‘The Wizard and I’ is perfectly nailed by Erivo. Jonathan Bailey comes close to stealing the limelight with a show-stopping turn as the charming, likeable but slightly rogueish Fiyero, his ‘Dancing Through Life’ routine in particular being a stunning display of athletic dancing matched with perfect vocals. Every number is given its own carefully judged tone, with wonderfully complementary photography and editing, to create a film that leaves you eagerly wanting more.

I didn’t really know the musical coming into it, but after Jon M Chu’s excellent production, I’m excited to see what happens in Part (Act) 2.