Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn

Odd indeed that a man regarded as a quintessential Englishman on stage and screen was an adopted one, the son of a Hungarian Jewish father and a partly German Jew. But that was Leslie Howard a man who crossed the Atlantic quite regularly to star on the British and American stage and screen.

A kid whose parents wanted to send him into some humdrum business career, you could not contain his creativity which only at a last resort channeled itself into acting.

I found it fascinating how the two children, Ronald and Leslie seemed to take with equanimity their father's womanizing. Merle Oberon and secretary Violette Cunningham were only the two most prominent. Something that Ruth Howard just put up with as did Robert Mitchum's wife.

Interesting also that the two films he didn't think much of were the two that he co-starred with Clark Gable. In A Free Soul, Gable was a newcomer and Howard was a distinct 4th behind Lionel Barrymore's Best Actor performance and Gable's roughhewn gangster and Norma Shearer's woman with an itch. And he could never convince David O. Selznick he wasn't quite right for Ashley Wilkes. It would have been interesting had he lived another two decades with a few revivals of Gone With The Wind and seen the response to it even today what he might have thought.

Enough great roles to remember him in any event. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Of Human Bondage, Pygmalion. We are fortunate also that preserved on film are Broadway starring roles in The Petrified Forest and The Animal Kingdom and Berkeley Square.

Of course the speculation grows even now about the doomed airline flight from Lisbon to London where he was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by the Germans. He was most active in the war effort. He served in the trenches during the first World War. He died in the second as surely as any soldier, sailor, or airman.

The film is a great tribute to a great star.

I started this documentary mildly interested in its subject. About halfway through, though, I became quite taken with the subject's daughter who, as depicted onscreen, was a tough, clear eyed but not insensitive old gal, certainly fond of her dad and admiring of his virtues but able, as a previous reviewer stated, to see his flaws. Chief among these was serial adultery which, in Howard's case, included using his daughter as a deux ex machina to break up with Merle Oberon, a stunt that I would place somewhere between weak and appalling. In addition to chronic philandering there was a failing I noticed that seemed to escape the daughter, namely a supercilious attitude toward Hollywood which went something like this: "If I must endure the vulgarians on the coast then I will at least be compensated with lots of weekends at San Simeon". This is doubly snobby in that Howard feels superior to both the American film industry as a whole and to all the American film industry boobs who can't crack the A list.

Howard's good points, however, chiefly his anti Nazi patriotism and courage in wartime, along with solid craftsmanship as an actor, clearly more than balance the shortcomings and, as filtered through the charming, intelligent and acerbic eyes of his daughter, make this documentary's subject a beguiling combination of good and not so good. Is there any greatness in the mix? Not in my opinion, but you might have a different view. Give it a B.

PS...Big dropoff in talking head quality from Leslie Ruth to Howard's son, as well as various film historians and biographers.

There is nothing outlandishly wrong about this documentary, but there really isn't anything interesting or new, either about the man professionally or personally.

I had never been particularly intrigued by Howard, but this splendid film drew me in and proved fascinating viewing (thanks TCM!). Director/prime mover Thomas Hamilton did a great job of bringing his subject to life -- literally. It was startling to hear Howard's daughter (miraculously still able to bear witness!) and others offer their still-vivid memories of a man who died so long ago, along with all of the rare archival reminiscences. The film was beautifully assembled -- smoothly edited with so many wonderful clips, so much rare footage, the story well told with some skillful non-linear touches and a haunting score by Maria Antal. A real contribution to film scholarship that will have me looking closer into every Howard film I see from now on.

It's a pretty sorry state of affairs that Leslie Howard is best remembered for Gone With the Wind, for I always think of it like remembering Max Von Sydow for The Greatest Story Ever Told. Howard was all wrong for Ashley Wilkes, and he knew it, only agreeing to it because David O.Selznick promised him producer reins on Intermezzo. In truth, Ashley was an unplayable part, the Edgar Linton of Civil War literature.

Howard's real greatness was on stage in Britain in the 1920s and on film in the 1930s. His roles As Henry Higgins in Pygmalion and the definitive The Scarlet Pimpernel immortalised him even before the tragic air crash in 1943 that ensured he'd never get old in the mind's eye.

When I saw Tom Hamilton's film it brought back many memories of Leslie, and the story of how he came to begin his film is almost as fantastic as Leslie's career and life. And then there's the wonderful touch of having it narrated by Derek Partridge - familiar face and voice on TV in his time - who just so happened to have been one of the people who were taken off the ill-fated Flight 777 to accommodate Leslie Howard (he was only a 7 year old boy at the time).

Essentially, this has been a labour of love for five or six years for Tom Hamilton and his other half Tracy and I only wish it could be made possible for the film to be seen by more people than have yet had the opportunity. (We sadly live in a world where even Kevin Brownlow is struggling to get new documentaries commissioned).

Only last month, Tom set up a Kickstarter campaign page to raise the necessary funds to clear all legal and clearance costs and this will remain open for another week. Anyone who is in a position to contribute will be helping to bring Leslie back to the state of remembrance he deserves.