A cheap, drunken, bombastic widower (Charles Laughton) declares he will not pay the expected marriage settlement for his two younger daughters (Daphne Anderson and a pre-pre-Faulty Towers Prunella Scales) and that his eldest (Brenda de Banzie) is too old to find a husband. That eldest has her own plans: marriage with a lower class bootmaker (John Mills), freedom for her sisters, a future, and to teach her father a lesson.
Before the vistas of The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean captained this more constrained and very British movie (based on a play first staged in the U.S. but that was welcomed across the pond). Made during the Post-War British Comedy boom, it steps out of the norm, joining The Importance of Being Earnest and Kind Hearts and Coronets, as set outside of that time period. It is roughly fifty years before rubble and coupon books. Still, Hobson’s Choice fits with its brethren. Like other comedies of the time, it presents a group of eccentric characters with very human failing, most of whom are likeable. It also comments on the English class system as well as the place of women. Not surprisingly, the class distinctions that had been rent apart by the war are shown for the foolishness that they’ve always been. The relatively upper class individuals are mostly useless and struggling to hold on to their diminishing privilege. It is the lower classes that are useful, even if they haven’t learned to express themselves yet. As for feminism, it is a women who plans and frees herself from domination, and raise others with her.
The themes are strong, and most of the jokes are on topic, though the film drifts from time to time into broader farce. Partly that’s the script, but mainly it is Laughton, devouring scenery. Even still, it rarely goes for the big laugh. This is a gentle comedy that is hard not to enjoy.
The crisp B&W photography is as beautiful as Lean’s more famous works. The high contrast creates a world not quite real, where the exaggerated foibles of the characters belong.
It takes a bit of effort to ignore that the daughters are played by actresses in the wrong decade of their careers (de Banzie was 15 years beyond her character’s repeatedly stated age of 30), but everyone is so good in their parts that it is worth overlooking.
Brenda de Banzie also starred in the genre films Doctor at Sea (1956) and Too Many Crooks (1959). Raymond Huntley, who had only a cameo role, was a mainstay of post-war British comedies, playing normally third or forth bananas. His other films in the movement include Doctor at Sea (1955), The Green Man (1956), Our Man in Havana (1959), I’m All Right Jack (1959), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), Make Mine Mink (1960), The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966). Richard Wattis was also a familiar ensemble member of the movement, also appearing in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Mr. Lord Says No (1952), Innocents in Paris (1953), Top of the Form (1953), The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954), Doctor in the House (1954), The Green Man (1956), Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957). Barnacle Bill (1957), Left Right and Centre (1959), The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery.