Une plume à son chapeau

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."

A FEATHER IN HER HAT (Columbia, 1935), directed by Alfred Santell, is an odd little film about a self-sacrificing woman, a theme most commonly found in 1930s dramas made popular by soap opera queens, including the likes of Ruth Chatterton or Kay Francis as prime examples. Pauline Lord (1890-1950), a veteran stage actress with MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH (Paramount, 1934) her screen debut, plays another one of her quietly compelling characterizations that might have set the standard for future film roles had she not made this her second and final screen performance. 

Taken from a novel by I.A.R. Wylie, Pauline Lord plays an English widow named Clarissa Phipps, proprietress of 'Clarissa's Corner Shop' located on the poor section of town on Little Egbert Street. In a prologue set in 1925, Clarissa witnesses a gathering at Hyde Park where Captain Randolph Courtney (Basil Rathbone), a limping war veteran and alcoholic aristocrat, giving a speech to the crowd. After he collapses, Courtney is placed on a park bench for a rest. Believing he could be a good influence on her son, Richard (William Martin), Clarissa decides to take the cultured man home with her so he could have the boy grow to become a gentleman. Move forward, 1935. Richard (Louis Hayward), now a young man, has one ambition in life, to become a playwright. On his 21st birthday, he's told by Clarissa that she is not his mother but only a woman entrusted to him by her employer. Having done her part in raising him, Clarissa entrusts Richard with a bank book of a thousand pounds so he could go out on his own and make a success. Going through a bunch of old letters, Courtney informs Richard of his natural mother being an actress named Julia Trent (Billie Burke), now remarried to Paul Anders (Victor Kilian - resembling that of actor Paul Lukas from LITTLE WOMEN (1933) right down to his accent), and living somewhere in town. Locating her whereabouts, Richard takes up lodging at her residence under his supposed real name of Richard Orland.  Although loved by Emily (Nydia Westman), his childhood sweetheart, Richard falls in love with Juliet's step-daughter, Pauline (Wendy Barrie), a young socialite loved by producer Leo Carthwright (David Niven). Clarissa, who favors Pauline, does her best to discourage Emily from seeing Richard. During the premiere of Richard's first play, "Song of Sixpense," starring Julia Trent, Clarissa, in attendance with a feather in her hat, reveals another secret to Richard after the performance.

With Pauline Lord as the leading character, much of A FEATHER IN HER HAT belongs to Louis Hayward, though the more outstanding but less challenging performance goes to Basil Rathbone. With 1935 being Rathbone's busiest and most productive year on screen, with such notable roles in David COPPERFIELD, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, CAPTAIN BLOOD and THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, this production, the least known of all,  provides him the opportunity to play a kindly yet dignified gentleman, in contrast to menacing villains, and a chance to age slightly as the story progresses. One of the main flaws with A FEATHER IN HER HAT is how under developed it is, especially during its opening minutes which seems to have been tightened through the editing process, leaving out perhaps important details that would have been beneficial to the plot. Pauline Lord appears more confident as a movie actress than she was in MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH, but sometimes breaks away from speaking with British accent.

Other members of the cast include Thurston Hall (Sir Elroyd Joyce, producer); J.M. Kerrigan (Mr. Robjoy); Nana Bryant (Lady Drake); and Lawrence Grant (Doctor Phillips).

If the underscoring heard during the opening credits sounds familiar, its one lifted from Columbia's 1934 Academy Award winner, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and used as introductory score again in other Columbia products as TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934) and SHE MARRIED HER BOSS (1935). A FEATHER IN HER HAT, which runs at 76 minutes, has become one of a great number of long forgotten features from the Columbia library that has turned up in recent years on Turner Classic Movies (air date: November 8, 2008). Alhough not the best in the lot, it's a worthy rediscovery, especially for film buffs looking for hard to find movies such as this one. (**1/2)

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.

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.

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.