A Feather in Her Hat

Pauline Lord, a poor, common woman, wants a better life for her son. She owns a small shop, and together with her partner Basil Rathbone, she raises her son to have the manners and speech of a gentleman if ever he should get out of the slums. When he comes of age, she tells him a great secret: he's adopted, and his mother was a very wealthy woman who's left him $1000 to make his way in the world. With this news, Louis Hayward sets off to London to find his family and start a career as a playwright.

While this film might not be as big a tearjerker as others of its kind, it's still very good and entertaining to watch. Pauline Lord gives a great performance, reminding me of a British Shirley Boothe in her tired, sacrificing nature. Basil Rathbone and Louis Hayward are very good as well; you can really sense both their struggles of being a part of the upper and lower classes. Wendy Barrie and Nydia Westman are both sincere, kind, and loving, so when they're pitted against each other, you'll have a hard time rooting for only one in the love triangle! My only complaint is I would have liked the film to be a little longer. All the characters are so interesting, if the running time had been expanded twenty minutes or more, we could have learned a little more about them!

For lovers of Stella Dallas, A Pocketful of Miracles, and Great Expectations, add this English drama to your list. It's an obscure old movie, and you'll be glad you found out about it.

After failing as a leading man in Hollywood when talkies came in, Basil Rathbone came back as a character actor five years later. He had a remarkable 1935: David Copperfield, Captain Blood, Anna Karenina, and The Last Days of Pompeii especially showcased his range as a "villain," from pious sadist to laughing cavalier to haughty aristocrat -- each time acting with a subtle twist that made his character the most interesting one in the film.

And this little movie, in which he's not a villain but a gentleman drunk who becomes a surrogate husband and father to a poor shopkeeper and her son. It's not great literature; in fact it's pretty disgustingly condescending to the "little people" and their plucky spirit. As a story, it's about as interesting as an old doily fished out of grandma's trunk. Because I love him, I'd like to say that Rathbone saves it with a remarkable performance, but he's too much of a live wire to play a mild, passive weakling, and he doesn't have much chemistry with Pauline Lord, who plays the sacrificing mother we're supposed to be interested in. It's a part better suited to Roland Young or Donald Crisp... or Nigel Bruce.

Still, as a Rathbone completist, I was happy to get a chance to see it, having first read about it in Michael Druxman's biography of Rathbone waaaaay back in 1974... the recent airing by TCM is the first showing I'm aware of since then. Now if I could only get my hands on "Loyalties."

Maybe not quite the birthday gift that "Richard" (Louis Hayward) would want, but at his small 21st anniversary celebration his mother "Clarissa" (Pauline Lord) gives him a bank book with a rather large sum of money deposited, then announces to him and to their close family intimate - and lover of a snifter - "Capt. Courtney" (Basil Rathbone) that she is not, in fact, his mother. A little scrutinising and some detective work soon establishes the true identity of that particular woman and "Richard" takes up lodgings with the now married "Julia" (Billie Burke) and her step-daughter "Pauline" (Wendy Barrie). There's a bit of a love triangle developing now between these two and his first love "Emily" (Nydia Westman) whilst "Pauline" must contend with the loving suit of "Leo" (a few brief appearances from David Niven). The burning question is why did "Clarissa" take such a step. Well, it seems she wanted her lad to get out of the vicious circle of their near poverty existence, and so by making him fend for himself he would be driven to do what he most wanted to do - write a play. Can he make a success of it all and make "Clarissa" proud? Though ultimately tinged with a bit of tragedy, the plot here is not the most taxing. The writing is a bit on the gloopy side at times and Hayward maybe just a little too sterile, but Lord is on solid form, as is Rathbone, and this benefits from a decent story of love and integrity that deserves a telling.

Pauline Lord gets top billing as Clarissa Phelps, a lower-class English shop keeper with a young son, Richard. She wants a better life for him than she's had, so she finds a homeless, alcoholic WW1 vet named Randolph Courtney (Basil Rathbone), a former member of the upper classes, and brings him home, giving him room and board in exchange for teaching her son to act like a respectable member of society. Richard grows into manhood (Louis Hayward), at which point he sets out to make a name for himself, becoming involved with society girl Pauline (Wendy Barrie).

Pauline Lord was a major star of the American and British stage, highly respected for starring in the original productions of Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, and many others. She only appeared in two films, 1934's Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and this one. She decided films weren't for her, and never made another, eventually dying in a car crash at age 60 in 1950. I can't speak for that previous film, but this one wouldn't endear me to the art form, either. It's a tired rehash of "suffering mother" tropes that had already become cliches before sound entered pictures. I watched this for Basil, who's good in a promising role, but although he received second billing, behind only Lord, both he and she are relegated to the back burner once Hayward enters the film, and it becomes a tedious romantic triangle between Hayward, Wendy Barrie and Westman. Things liven up a bit when Niven is around as another suitor of Barrie's, but that isn't often enough.

There's one bit I liked in this film A Feather in Her Hat. Rathbone's character and his whiskey flask have spent the night on a park bench. In the morning, Pauline Lord wakes him up and, with barely a how-do-you-do, invites him back to her house with the enticement of a hooker of brandy. Rathbone's character, a drunken WWI vet traumatized by what he describes as "the shrieking of shells, and the bleeding of things," naturally says yes to her offer and links arms with her. He introduces himself and asks her name. He then asks "Miss or Mrs?" She says her husband is dead. Rathbone asks "The war?" Pauline Lord's character answers "Plumbing." Rathbone looks inquiringly at her and she explains "Someone hit him up the head with a lead pipe." It's a good bit of dialogue. Unfortunately, this exchange is the only good bit of dialogue in the film, which is mawkish, sappy, and full of unbelievable plot twists of which my favorite is that the quick sale of a corner newspaper/cigarettes-type shop not only finances an entire West End play production previously turned down by a bigwig as "too expensive." but it also buys a nearby rowhouse AND a house with land in the country. Still, it's always good to see Basil Rathbone. If I found him on a park bench I'd invite him home, too. I should buy a bottle of brandy and keep it in the cupboard in case I come across him in a park someday.