Kind Lady

I realise that my passion for the Golden Age of Hollywood - the mid '30s to the mid '60s - has little to do with such popular genres as Westerns, Musicals and Film Noir; rather is it the Romantic cinema I adore. In the hands of a master director such as William Wyler the genre achieved greatness ( "Carrie", "The Heiress", "Wuthering Heights" and "The Best Years Of Our Lives"). Even works that are little more than good yarns ("Gone With The Wind", "All This And Heaven Too" and "Kings Row") leave me speechless with admiration for their sheer craftsmanship and style. I have to confess to swallowing with considerable pleasure what may be regarded as a by-product of the genre, Hollywood Gothic melodrama, the more outlandish the better ("The Spiral Staircase", "Dragonwyck" or "Ladies in Retirement"). When the genre depicted Victorian or Edwardian London as it so often did I am apt to experience frissons of delight ("Gaslight", "Moss Rose" or "Hangover "Square"). I thought I knew them all until one of our TV channels came up with one I had never heard of, John Sturges's "Kind Lady" of 1951. What a discovery! The eponymous heroine is played by that most commanding of Hollywood matriarchs, Ethel Barrymore, she of the gravel voice and penetrating eyes. It was rare for her to play the tormented party but somehow you know from the beginning that here is a character with the inner strength to overcome the wiles of her tormentors. If the film has a weakness it lies in Maurice Evans's rather colourless arch-villain. Although I have not seen the earlier version of "Kind Lady" I can well imagine the Basil Rathbone who played the part could convey evil with more sinister aplomb. But everything else about the film is absolutely right. Hollywood seemed to have a particular obsession with plots where villains attempted to drive their victims insane or else present them as insane to the rest of the world. If George Cukor's "Gaslight" is probably the finest example "Kind Lady" runs it a close second. With Ethel Barrymore's fine performance and excellent support from Betsy Blair, an amazingly young Angela Lansbury and John Williams as the solicitor who is bound to come to the rescue, superbly accomplished photography from Joseph Ruttenberg who did marvels with "The Great Waltz" and "Mrs Miniver" and a wonderfully lyrical score by David Raksin, to my mind the finest of all the Hollywood in-house composers, what more can one ask. Unadulterated pleasure!

Understated acting makes this production a gem. In the present world movie making is so slipshod as far as plots are concerned; however, I highly recommend this movie - the 1951 version - to anyone who loves old movies. Isn't Ethel Barrymore wonderful? and Maurice Evans is scary. Did anyone pick up on the fact that Rose's sister, Mrs. Harkley, is actually Angela Lansbury's mother, Moyna MacGill? I heartily recommend this wonderful movie.

After the demise of ITV ON Digital in the UK, I missed their old classic movie channel, "Carlton Cinema" as I have taped several good films from there, including "Portrait of Jennie (1948)", starring my favourite actress Jennifer Jones.In that film Ethel Barrymore played Miss Spinney, a partner in a New York art gallery who saves Eban Adams from apparent starvation by buying some of his art work. We recently had SKY TV installed which includes "Turner Classic Movies" a.k.a. "TCM".I only saw the last 2/3 of "Kind Lady" but stayed to the end despite my wife saying we had to go out to the shops!I was fascinated by Ethel Barrymore again playing an art connoisseur,(3 years after the aforementioned film), in a movie I had not seen before on UK tv.I just had to see it to the end.And there was a very young Angela Lansberry playing a tough wife of a criminal played with shifting accent by Keenan Wynn!.Of course Hollywood did round up a clutch of British actors and a right-hand drive vintage car to give the movie some authenticity.This film has a nightmare like quality.We could all visualise what it would be like for us to be old, alone and have no protector when a person inveigles themselves into your home on an apparant genuine pretext and then systematically takes over your whole house and possessions!Yes the conventions of film making in 1951 meant that producers could not allow criminals on screen to get away with their ill-gotten booty and you don't see the death of the faithful maid.Maurice Evans is Ok but I would have cast someone like George Sanders in the chief "baddie" role - much more menacing!(Perhaps he wasn't available).It is nevertheless a rip roaring melodrama and next time I hope to see the first 1/3 of this film.

Ethel Barrymore defies Hollywood ageism by taking the lead role in this thriller from MGM, and quite frankly, with the exception of her work in None But the Lonely Heart, it is one of her best on-screen performances.

MGM previously filmed this story in 1935 with Aline MacMahon. Miss MacMahon excelled at the role of a recluse whose life is now at the mercy of a group of con artists. But Barrymore imbues it with more authenticity and the right amount of wisdom and shrewdness that comes with being the exact age of the character, not dressing up in old woman's clothes and applying gobs of make-up like a much younger Miss McMahon did in the first filmed production.

This remake also benefits from a stellar supporting cast, the likes of which include MGM contract player Angela Lansbury and Lansbury's real-life mother Moyna Macgill in a small role. Miss Barrymore's best is brought out in spades by costar Maurice Evans, the slickest con in the bunch, who dazzles the kind lady as a smooth-talking rogue while avoiding the pitfalls of scene chewing. As a result, we are kept enthralled right up to the story's denouement. The ending certainly does not disappoint and reaffirms our belief in the justice of this world.

I saw this black-and-white chiller on tv when I was a boy, some 35 years ago. Yet I recall scenes from it as though I saw it only last week. Imagine a group of seemingly well-bred people, patrons of the arts, befriending you--but then locking you in your house as they move in, and then hearing them tell visitors that you are delusional and being cared for by them. The scene in which the elderly victim is continually taunted while being forced to pose for the painting of her portrait--a rendering that, when completed, is seen to have grotesquely distorted her likeness to resemble that of a haggard, insane woman--is particularly spine-chilling. Without exaggeration, this is a gripping drama whose suspense few (if indeed any) can match. I only hope that someday it appears on video, so that I can purchase it for my library.