The History of Mr. Polly

Alfred Poly is a timid young man who reads and enjoys a life of leisure. His daydreaming losses him job after job and he finds his daydreams all he's left with. After the death of his father he marries a girl because it seems the right thing to do and they plan to open a shop together. 15 years later he is married to an abusive spiteful wife and feeling trapped in his little life. Plans to burn his shop down and kill himself led him to become a hero and decide to strike out to make a new life for himself.

Based on HG Wells story (which I have not read) this classic film is a reasonable little tale that maybe suffers from being too short. The plot spans something like 20 years (most of which is covered by a subtitle) and doesn't give us enough time to really get to know Poly well enough to get behind him. Instead the film tries to have a sort of light comedic feel to it. However for me this doesn't sit well with the subject of a man's life and the journey he eventually decides to make.

Some of it is amusing enough but really I needed to feel more for Poly. The fast track and the set pieces prevented me knowing enough about him to care beyond the fact that he wants a mediating quiet life - but this fact is painted thick without developing character. The actual moral of the tale is difficult to reach but appears to be about overcoming personal weakness to have the life you want, as seen in Poly's final journey.

Mills is good in the lead but does lay on the whole `I want a quiet life' thing a bit thick and doesn't blend it well with the comedic touches (although he does do these well). The support cast are fine but do tend to drift in and out of Poly's history. Although they do help to know Poly better as they reflect his changing life and they all have an impact on who he is.

Overall this is very light when it should have had better character development and the comedy doesn't sit well with the heavier tale of Poly's search for the life he wants.

HG Wells was one of the most successful novelists of the early 20th century, particularly famous for his science fiction. But earlier his tales of life among the ordinary people won him great success and eventually a wide reputation as a thinker and commentator as well as a writer. He wrote from personal experience - his mother was a domestic servant in a great house called Uppark, now one of the showplace of the National Trust. Mr Polly was a typical Wells characters - easy-going, unambitious, an innocent in a wicked world. John MIlls, one of the best-loved of British actors, captures perfectly the character of this harmless, well-meaning man, destined to be pushed hither and thither by a variety of females. But the film lack a strong story line and is often aimless and boring. THere are some hilarious scenes - the funeral of his father, which was more like a wedding party than a wake, with young women circling the newly rich innocent like sharks round a seal. Best of all was the scene where Mr Polly tries his hand at punting, struggling with his passenger and throwing them both in to the water. The music here was brilliantly written for the wind of the orchestra and played by a team of virtuosos with an outstanding clarinettist - who were they? The composer William Alwyn was probably the most prolific film composer of his or any generation. His work here saved the film from well-meant but earnest tedium. There should be a celebration of Alwyn's contribution to the art of film.

John Mills prefers to read and dream rather than learn the haberdasher's trade, so he's fired. His father up and dies, and leaves him a nice sum of money. He enjoys bicycling around, saying he is "looking for a busienss to invest in", but marriage with his cousin, Betty Ann Davies, forces him to be a shop. It soon turns into a dull routine and marginal business. He burns it down for the insurance, then takes off. Soon he has settled down at a waterside inn run by Meg Jenks, punting the ferry and doing odd jobs.

Anthony Pelissier did not have a tremendously productive career as a writer-director, but he turned out fine screen transitions of literary works. In his first movie, he tackles H. G. Wells novel about a man who just wants to get by and not meddle in affairs that are none of his business.... and as it turns out, he does meddle and demonstrates that, as ridiculous as he appears fighting off Miss Jenks' drunk and vindictive uncle Finlay Currie, time and chance are on his side. What we are to make of this, except that people are ridiculous, I don't really know. But it does demonstrate that. With Diana Churchill, Sally Ann Howe, Juliet Mills, Moore Marriott, and Irene Handl.

... because in its entirety the film is very satisfying.

Mr. Polly (John Mills) is hard to root for. He is a lazy employee in a shop who gets fired for reading novels when he should be working. He spends months looking - not very hard - for another job when he gets news his father died. His father left him a small inheritance, and so he decides to open a shop himself, although he hated working in one. Then he decides he needs a wife. He falls for a schoolgirl ten years younger than himself, but it turns out she is just teasing him for the amusement of her friends, so he dispassionately marries a spinster cousin.

15 years later we are shown where Polly is - on the verge of bankruptcy, with his wife constantly nagging him about things that seem to be very true about himself. The shop is a failure, in part because it is chaotic - it does not seem to have a theme at all. So the unhappy Polly decides to commit suicide by burning his shop down with him in it while his wife is at church. Polly succeeds at burning the shop but not himself, and decides to hit the open road. And it is at this point he becomes a completely different kind of person than he has been for the first half of the film. In other words, he does become somewhat admirable - focused, not lazy. The odd thing is that Polly has no real basis for any of the actions he takes at any stage of his life. He certainly isn't doing anything because he wants to do so, and in some cases his actions make him unhappy, and in latter cases they lead to happiness.

The entire thing is very ironic as the first and second parts merge into a very ironic and short third act. It's definitely original, and John Mills always improves any film.

This is probably H.G.Wells' best story or at least his most human and charming one. It's a petty triviality, but in the small things you can find some golden traces of hidden treasures worth discovering, which is what Mr. Polly does. John Mills is perfect for the job, especially since he fails in all his official ones, while all he is good for is reading old tales of chivalry and dreaming of some faint ideal far beyond his reach. Accidentally he gets married, and she turns out to make the worst for him, so he plans to get away by suicide and fails completely even with that. But a great momentum is waiting for him.

Finlay Currie is equally perfect as the hooligan Uncle Jim, who is only good at making mincemeat of people and tries hard at it, (they were better partnered together just previously in "Great Expectations" as Pip and Magwitch,) but also he fails completely, leaving Mr. Polly out of breeches and in a strange situation with a lost body, which later turns up to most accidentally again save him from further trouble...

The small man finally finds his kingdom and the proper idylls to it, where he can at last get thorough in reading his tales of chivalry and enjoy some meditation and fishing.

It's an idyllic comedy with some hardship to it and a titbit as such, with excellent acting, enjoyable direction and tailor-made music to suit it all as well. I saw it the first time some 40 years ago but enjoyed the revenue even more.