To Have and to Hold

Another early Hammer film watched for the "House of Hammer" Podcast was this, 1951 . . . Melodrama? It's described as a melodrama in the summary, though I'd say that gives it more credit that it warrants.

Brian (Patrick Barr) has married into a formally wealthy family that has fallen on less opulent times. His business dealings have made the family profitable again, much to the chagrin of his brother and sister-in-law Robert (Harry Fine) and Roberta (Ellen Pollock). Though the relationship is generally positive, his wife June (Avis Scott) has been having an affair. Brian is seriously injured in a fall from a horse, and told he will soon die from paralysis which is worsening. Rather than burden his wife, he decides to keep if from her, and be increasingly mean, to push her into the arms of her lover Max (Robert Ayres).

My problem with this one was that it started and, I felt, did a reasonable job of introducing its characters and the central idea - but then, from there, the film never really kicked on. It's essentially all the first act of a more traditional three act structure. The premise is explained but then nothing happens to hinder Brian's plan - even the arrival of Max's daughter doesn't so much as put even the smallest bump in the road. Robert and Roberta should be the antagonists, I suppose - but it's hard to see exactly where they should sit as opposition.

Once I reached it's abrupt, and unsatisfying, ending I couldn't help but feel that this was all a little pointless and that I'd wasted my time. There's nothing especially wrong with the performances, cinematography or scene setting, but it's all in service of a story I didn't do enough to make me care about it.

By old school drama I mean this is the sort of British upper class movie that does not get made anymore, but it does nevertheless represent an era.

It was made by Hammer, Jimmy Sangster has a credit as an assistant director.

It concerns a progressive, aristocratic farmer who, with his wife, run a large estate. He has (the usual) hangers on sister and brother-in-law who convinces him to ride a skittish horse whence he falls and is subsequently paralysed.

A cattle buying friend from the Argentine of similar views is staying with him and having a chaste affair with his wife. They decide they will tell him then the accident happens.

The rest of this short movie is not the usual run of the mill stuff and is well worth the time spent watching it.

The opening credits announce "introducing Eunice Gayson" although this was not her first movie, much more famous from her James Bond role.She sings a song in a nice soprano, if it is actually her.

It's the story of a family in their country estate, where the man in charge tries to do his best by everyone: pulling down the old cottages of his tenants to put up new decent ones, dealing with his wife having an affair with his visiting Americans, his in-laws, who look to mulct him of a few pounds so they can take a vacation to Scotland..... and his being thrown from a horse, crippled, and learning he is about to die.

It's from a play by Lionel Brown, clearly intended to appeal to country families visiting London, and it's all rather sweet-tempered and dull, with a syrupy score by Frank Spencer. If the problems of the people in CASABLANCA, where the survival of the ffree world don't amount to a hill of beans, I can't bring myself to care terribly about the rich and propertied who suffer from the same problems as ordinary people, and who have money, servants, and the same problems.

Godfrey Grayson, who prepared the shooting script, directs adequately.

A screen version of a stage-play that leavens the studio interior work with plenty of location footage centred on the "big house" in Hertfordshire used in several other contemporary Hammer films made in the early '50s. The house still stands (2019) but has been converted to apartments, while the grounds are soon to be filled with thousands of houses. The railway-station glimpsed in the level-crossing scene is still in use on a busy now-electrified main line: the manually-operated crossing-gates were replaced long-ago with the modern remotely-operated type.

The plot doesn't amount to much but the picture still manages to stay watchable: the actors do their best with the "B-picture" material. An odd if minor, thing about the film is that it appears elsewhere on the Web as having been released in 1950, rather than in 1951 (March).