Over the last week or so I've watched R.W. Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, a wonderful German refutation of the cheesefest we know as All That Heaven Allows, Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII, which will have a section added to the Tudor Mania article ASAP, and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, which put a snooze-filled capper on a crappy Election Day - not to mention the celebration of my 20th birthday. But let's ignore those for the present (but my dislike for the latter multiplied by its critical popularity indicates I may return to it if I find the time) and move on to the films I've watched in the last twenty-four hours. Thanks to AlecGuinnessFan on YouTube, I have viewed two more of films of one of my favorite actors of all time, Sir Alec Guinness, and in lieu of an in-depth appreciation of the Man of Many Faces (which will be provided around his birthday in April), I will offer my reviews of two of Sir Alec's more forgotten films: The Prisoner and The Captain's Paradise.Directed by Peter Glenville (Becket), The Prisoner (1955) is an adaptation of Bridget Boland's stage play about power, corruption, and faith. Guinness plays The Cardinal, a religious leader in an unnamed Eastern Bloc country who is arrested by the government for allegedly fomenting rebellion against the Communist state. He is jailed in solitary confinement, and interrogated by, well, The Interrogator (Jack Hawkins), his old friend and comrade from the Resistance. As rebellion breaks out, the urgency to break the Cardinal's will grows all the more urgent, but The Interrogator will only use persuasion and psychological tricks, refusing to resort to torture to extract a confession.
The movie is enjoyable, but suffers from one fatal flaw: it's a filmed play, with its focus on two characters very much at odds with one another. This is fine, but it isn't very cinematic. Nor are the few scenes outside of our central conflict well-done - the subplot with the prison guard (Ronald Lewis) and his girlfriend (Jeanette Sterke) seems tacked on to the story, and the depiction of the popular revolution, though remarkably topical for the time, is dealt with in rather a tertiary manner and seems to be rather obvious cinematic "opening up" of a stage play. Still, Glenville provides stark, minimalist direction, with Boland's effective, economic screenplay driving the drama forward. It may not quite work as a movie, but it's entertaining enough as a drama - even if the basic story and subject matter has been covered in any number of other films and plays (A Man for All Seasons springs to mind for me, at least).
Alec Guinness is, needless to say, excellent. He brings a wonderfully layered dignity to the Cardinal, a man whose greatest sin is excessive humility, and inability to see past his own faults. His descent from determined, willful but calm and collected prisoner to a desperate, raving near-lunatic is quite harrowing and starkly portrayed by Guinness. But special praise I think must go to Jack Hawkins, Guinness's long-time friend and fellow-actor from their days at the Old Vic. I've always liked Hawkns (well, excepting his horribly annoying Reverend in Zulu), and his performances in Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur, Lord Jim and especially Bridge on the River Kwai always provide a welcome injection of dignity and dry wit into any film. But he's a revelation here, effectively playing the chummy friend and war buddy, the ruthless inquistor, and the remorseful sinner. This is by far Hawkins' best performance, and he matches Guinness every step of the way.
So, it must be said that The Prisoner's basic story has been done before, and since - and better. Nonetheless, it's very well-done for a filmed play, with a striking pair of lead performances. 7/10
The Captain's Paradise (1953, Anthony Kimmins) is very much the opposite of The Prisoner. One of the Ealing Comedies which first made Guinness's name (see also such great films as Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, and my personal favorite, The Lavender Hill Mob), it casts Sir Alec as Captain Henry St. James, an intelligent, handsome and well-liked sea captain operating in the Strait of Gibraltar with one problem: he has two wives in two different ports. Well, he doesn't see this as a problem: sultry Moroccan girl Nita (Yvonne De Carlo) provides him with fun and excitement, proper British girl Maud (Celia Johnson) provides him with comfortable domesticity. But when his two wives begin to desire what they lack - that is, what their counterpart has in abundance - Henry finds himself increasingly disturbed. And needless to say, his crew and wives start to slowly catch wind of his scheme.
The Captain's Paradise is a classic comedy of errors. As in all such films, the fun is in watching the situation slowly unravel and the problems continue to pile up. Captain St. James is an interesting character, getting to live the ultimate male fantasy: having both his desire for calm domesticity and exotic romance and sexuality given to him, in two entirely different women. One might view this as a misogynist conceit, but the character is portrayed as being a man who discovered a wonderful solution to his desires rather than some sort of disgusting macho conceit (gee, that does sound familiar). And when the women begin to rebel against his constraints for them, problems inevitably ensue. The basic situation is familiar from any number of subsequent comedies and sitcoms, but it's rarely been done with such a degree of wit and sophistication. And as with most of the other Ealing films, there's a wonderfully, delightfully dark denouement to off-set the omnipresent goofiness. Always trust the British to get it right.
Sir Alec gives an extremely fun performance here, miles away from his strict dignity of his previous performance. This performance dispenses of the mannerisms of many of his other comedies, using his impeccable facial and verbal skills to create an enjoyably silly and endearing character, having a degree of chemistry with his female leads he rarely had elsewhere. Guinness employs the subtle little touches that make him special; watching him dance a tango with Yvonne De Carlo or persuade her why cooking is evil, or bugging out at the sight of rizzole, shouldn't be that funny, but he manages to find the humor in the situation and use it to the fullest. Yvonne De Carlo is beautiful and fun, but Celia Johnson - my God, I have to think I'm in love with this woman! And how fun is it to watch her unbutton her bleary British domestic persona into a fun-loving party girl. The supporting cast includes a plethora of fine character actors, including Charles Goldner, Miles Malleson, Bill Frasier, and Sebastian Cabot.
All in all, The Captain's Paradise is a fun little comedy, and it definitely deserves to be ranked with the aforementioned classics. 9/10
Tonight we are watching Gilda in film class, thus moving into the film noir genre. If that's worth writing about, you'll get an article in the next few days. If not, there's always Barry Lyndon bashing to look forward to.
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