A Feather in Her Hat

A Feather In Her Hat was the second of two films that famed stage actress Pauline Lord made. The first was Mrs. Wiggs Of The Cabbage Patch. In the case of this particular one I'm sorry a better vehicle wasn't available.

This film has not really aged all that well. It's an old fashioned tale of a mother's sacrifice for her child having to do with seeing him brought up as a gentleman. Hard to do though when he's born out of wedlock and you're just the proprietor of a shop.

Along about the age of 10 for her son, Lord takes in a boarder played by Basil Rathbone who has the airs of someone who has lived among the upper crust. But who for reasons unknown has fallen on hard times and has a drinking habit. He meets with Lord and her young son played by William Martin who has the Eliza Doolittle type cockney accent. The idea that for room and board Rathbone teaches him the ways of a gentleman.

Rathbone and Lord succeed because he turns out to be Louis Hayward who is then told on his 21st birthday that he's not really her son and that he was left in her care along with a thousand pounds and now with the proper airs and language he can make his way in the world. As he has a gift for words Hayward becomes a playwright.

The rest of the story is rather unbelievable and I won't say more. Hayward does get involved with two women, Nydia Westman from the old neighborhood and fashionable Wendy Barrie. And in the end he's a success with a price.

I mentioned Eliza Doolittle before and A Feather In Your Hat is also a story about class distinctions which in these more egalitarian times is hard to fathom. We all know the story of Pygmalion or My Fair Lady if you prefer. But Eliza's father Alfred sure never made the kind of sacrifice for his kid that Pauline Lord does for Hayward. In fact the whole concept is unbelievable which if you see the film you'll know what I mean.

David Niven has a small role her and is in one party scene and given a few lines. He's debonair and charming and must have given everyone in Hollywood the same idea. In the future he carried more films on his charm than anyone else ever did on their's.

For a chance to see Pauline Lord I'd say watch A Feather In Her Hat. But the story is incredibly outdated and maudlin.

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.

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.

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.

Too bad the first review I saw on the main page was negative. I think this film is lovely! It was a pleasure to see Basil Rathbone in a softer, less forthright role than what he usually played. Very enjoyable all around; all the acting very good; believable story. Always like seeing the old world as it might have been.