An Ideal Husband

Directed by Alexander Korda, costumed by Cecil Beaton. This is a good start for any movie, but when it is based on one of Oscar Wilde's great comedies, this starts to look like a real goodie.

The cast puts Diana Wyngard as Lady Chiltern, Hugh Williams as Lord Robert, Michael Wilding as Lord Goring, Constance Collier as Lady Markby, Glynis Johns as Miss Chiltern, and C Aubrey Smith as Goring's father, Lord Caversham. With them is Paulette Goddard, mainly known for her work in the USA, as Mrs Cheveley, the woman who 'looks like she has a past'. Now, An Ideal Husband can be witty and clever, or it can be screamingly funny and farcical (I saw a wonderful stage production which was firmly the latter): the film chooses wit over low comedy, perhaps the right idea as it works very well. The ladies are sumptuously costumed as you would expect, while the script barely tampers with the original stage play.

In comparison to the slightly later movie of The Importance of Being Earnest, this film bears up well. The cast is almost ideal and work together extremely well, and the colour certainly helps (as it did in Earnest too). Well worth a look.

This adaptation of the Oscar Wilde story "An Ideal Husband" works pretty well as light entertainment despite some shortcomings. It focuses on the dilemma of a prominent British politician, who wants to expose a financial fraud but who has been threatened with personal ruin if he does. The plot that follows does not really fulfill all of the potential of the situation, but that is probably a deliberate decision, as the story focuses more on the sights, atmosphere, and ways of upper-class society.

It often moves slowly in order to call attention to the sometimes extravagant habits of the characters; sometimes this is effective, sometimes less so. Once it gets going, the pace picks up a little. There are some moments of good subtle humor and commentary, with some of the funniest scenes perhaps being those with Michael Wilding as a wastrel son being confronted by father C. Aubrey Smith. Paulette Goddard is pretty good in an underplayed role as the villainness.

Overall, it scores higher on style than on substance, but perhaps that is exactly as intended, and it is entertaining enough to be worth seeing.

Hugh Williams is a member of the Party in charge of reporting on "the Argentine Canal scheme." He is about to reject it on behalf of the government, but adventuress Paulette Goddard has an old letter of his that reveals he passed on Cabinet secrets to a stock broker years ago. Not only would this ruin him in politics, but would cause his wife, Diana Wynard, to lose her illusion of his Olympian probity - yes, I know how absurd that is - and cease to love him. Somehow, it is up to Michael Wilding, the wastrel son of Cabinet minister C. Aubrey Smith, to save the day.

There is too much serious plotting and too little lunacy to make this play top notch Oscar Wilde. Everyone tries, and it's very good, but the best scene occurs early on, when Smith confronts Wilding, and brushes aside his nonsense, leaving the younger man flustered. Miss Goddard's musings, mostly to herself, sound like stage soliloquies, and sound quite flat. Nonetheless, there are enough witticisms and the pleasure of Glynis Johns as Williams' sister who inexplicably loves the usually self-absorbed Wilding, to make this fun.

Hungarian immigrant Alexander Korda did more than anyone else to make the cinematic image that the United Kingdom likes to show the world. In An Ideal Husband, Korda paints a very pretty picture of Victorian London. The games played by some of its upper crust inhabitants is not so pretty.

Hugh Williams is a rising politician and a man known for strong probity supported by his equally virtuous wife Diana Wynyard. But back in the day in a move that would now be called insider trading Williams is being blackmailed by adventuress Paulette Goddard who has an indiscreet letter from back in the day.

It's a story that never sees an end. A person in public life who makes such a show of personal virtue brought down or at least threatened with an indiscretion. It's similar to Broderick Crawford in All The King's Men when he blackmailed a former judge. The answer there was suicide.

The answer here is Williams goes to his friend Michael Wilding who is a bit of an upper class rogue himself to help with Goddard. Unbeknownst to him, Wilding and Goddard have some history which does kick back against Goddard.

I can truly see Vivien Leigh in the part who was the first choice. Still Goddard who makes no attempt at an English accent comes off well. She's one sly little minx and in the end she's most definitely got a plan B ready to roll.

Of course the Oscar Wilde quotes are just rolling from the mouths of the characters. Listen close or you'll miss one. Wilde always was a sophisticated observer of the human race and sad how some of his statements came all too true in his own life.

Add C. Aubrey Smith as Wilding's father who wants him to straighten out and be like that pillar of the Empire, Williams. Also add Glynis Johns as Williams's sister who much prefers a rogue to a model of probity.

You've got a fine adaption of a great Oscar Wilde play which is a bit more serious than most of his work.

Avoided this for years because of its underwhelming reputation, and was delighted by a recent TCM showing. It's a fine filming of a muckraking Wilde comedy, in which, typically of the author, observations about class and sex and money are often dropped in, not to further the plot, just to allow Wilde to epigrammatically vent as only he could. It's a ravishing production in eye-popping Technicolor, swamped by Cecil Beaton gowns and played by a most competent cast. If Diana Wynyard's moral righteousness becomes a little wearying, I suspect it's the character rather than her playing of it, and she's matched splendidly by Hugh Williams' tortured, blackmailed statesman. Michael Wilding was never better, Glynis Johns is young and comely, and Paulette Goddard not only maintains a convincing accent but absolutely catches the charm, opportunism, and wise verbal sparring the character needs. It's a fine companion piece to the matchless "Importance of Being Earnest" of five years later, and much more eye-catchingly cinematic.