Profondo come il mare

For a while it looked as though the BFI's Vivien Leigh season would be without "The Deep Blue Sea". As others have noted here, it's been unavailable for many years. Programme notes revealed that the BFI has a single 35mm print in its archive - with faded colour, sound damage in the first and last reels, and many splices. Nothing better could be located anywhere in the world. The BFI digitised the print and this was shown tonight to a sold-out house seemingly well aware this may be the only chance to see the film on the big screen. It looked better than anticipated. The performances are excellent. Incidentally, whoever said the film is "stagebound" can't have seen it since 1955. Rattigan's play has been cleverly opened out with flashbacks, many locations (among them an air show, Klosters, and the London Embankment) and several big studio sets including a law court, bars and pubs, and a huge recreation of London's Soho. I didn't have a pen and and have now forgotten many of the uncredited actors. But they include Frederick Schiller, Gerald Campion, Jacqueline Cox, Shandra (later Sandra)Walden, Amanda Coxell (later Mandy Harper),Patricia Hayes, Raymond Francis and John Boxer.

"Suicide is painless", the M. A. S. H. song announced, but Hester (played by a negative Vivien Leigh) is determined to commit suicide, beginning and ending the film on the verge of it.

I have long admired Ukrainian-born Director Anatole Litvak for his ability to bring emotional situations to the screen, and I am particularly fond of GOODBYE AGAIN and SNAKE PIT, but here the room where pretty much all the action unfolds has no view at all, other than suicide.

Perhaps the beautiful Vivien Leigh identified with Hester's plight because in reality she was a nymphomaniac bipolar schizophrenic who kept cheating husband Laurence Olivier with Peter Finch and a host of other men, and it fits that she might want to convey to all that she could only see suicide as the solution. Sad as that might be, she died in 1967 of chronic TB.

I watched a shabby, rather unfocused copy of this claustrophobic film on Youtube, which only rendered it bleaker, but I still liked Kenneth More's performance, a happy jobless golfer brimming with unconcerned humor and selfishness, Eric Portman as the horse race bookie apparently preparing medication for the quadruped competiitors who comes to her rescue, Emlyn Williams, as her ditched Old Bailey judge husband who still loves her but is shunned, Moira Lister as the gossipmonger of a neighbor, and other minor characters who you can see fitting into this play by Terence Rattigan.

Vivling, as Larry Olivier used to call his then wife, delivers a rather cold and helpless performance vaguely reminiscent of Blanche in STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE but without the sympathetic touch and the deft direction of Kazan, and not even Jack Hildyard can save the film from unremitting hopelessness with his usually top notch cinematography, here reduced to pretty one living room, with the odd exterior shot.

All told, I can understand why the film rated a dud with critics when it came out. 6/10.

"The Deep Blue Sea" represents a notable staple in the film repertoire of Vivien Leigh. Given the enormous popularity and artistic achievements of this consummate British actress, it seems incredible that this film is not available on video. She is always fascinating to watch, and this drama about marital difficulties provides her with a good "modern day" role, compared to her many period/costume pieces. She is beautiful, skillful, and intelligent in her approach to and realization of her characters, and all are evident in this sensibly presented drama. Her co-star, Kenneth More, is professional as always; Eric Portman gives his usual strong character support; and the appearance of Emlyn Williams is a special bonus. The film needs to be seen on the big screen in CinemaScope to get its maximum impact. It deserves to be revived, and more importantly, made available on video.

This film suffers from the lingering taint of tepid critical response upon its initial release, based largely on the facts that (1) Rattigan's original play was "opened up" (including a ski trip to Switzerland) and shot in CinemaScope and (2) that the beautiful and glamorous Vivien Leigh played a heroine created on stage by the talented but dowdy Peggy Ashcroft.

Leigh's performance was deemed cold - too controlled - yet she provides the cold fire, hot ice quality that always made her a fascinating film actress. More's performance as the lover was overrated - he won a prize at the Venice film festival, and made it plain that he and his co-star did not get along during filming, mainly because he protested Leigh's desire to look her best. Such a desire is all the more understandable given the fact that her last completed film was A Streetcar Named Desire, as the faded beauty Blanche, and that she had subsequently broken down during the filming of Elephant Walk and been replaced by the much younger Elizabeth Taylor.

There were dissenting critical opinions. Pauline Kael called Leigh's performance here "brilliant" when later reviewing The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and finding the Karen Stone performance wanting in contrast. (I beg to differ with Pauline on that point, being a Karen Stone enthusiast myself.) In any case, The Deep Blue Sea deserves to be seen. It was produced by Alexander Korda in Britain, but distributed by 20th Century Fox in the U.S.A., so maybe there are copyright issues blocking its release on video.

Here in America the film would seem a likely staple of the American Movie Classics cable station, if for no other reason because it stars the woman who played Scarlett O'Hara. (20th Century Fox CinemaScope films of the same vintage play regularly on the station, e.g., How To Marry a Millionaire, Three Coins in the Fountain, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Anastasia, et al.) The critical success of David Mamet's adaptation of The Winslow Boy may stir interest in Rattigan once again - let's hope so.

The play itself was and remains a strong acting vehicle, especially for the woman who plays Hester. Faye Dunaway nearly did it in NYC for Roundabout, but somehow the star and the theater couldn't come to terms over contract demands, and it was revived instead with Blythe Danner (aka Ma Paltrow).

Let's hope that Vivien Leigh's performance will be available for viewing by movie fans and serious film and theater scholars alike in the near future. After all, she is one of the great actresses of the twentieth century cinema, and this is one of but eight films she made following Gone With the Wind.

An interesting footnote: Arthur Hill appears briefly in this film; later, when Vivien Leigh won a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway musical Tovarich, Hill won the Tony for his dramatic turn in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. There is an amusing photograph of Leigh, Hill, and fellow winners Zero Mostel and Uta Hagen at the awards ceremony, circa 1963.

Anyone expecting an aristocratic performance by Vivien Leigh is doomed to disappointment. Clad in a drab series of blouses and slacks, she makes Hester Collier a self-interested neurotic perpetually needing succour from anyone willing to listen. Her main problem is a lack of self-reliance, as the Doctor (Eric Portman) informs her. The men in her life are self-interested in their different ways, and have no emotional capacity to empathise with her. The only person who understands anything is her landlady (Dandy Nichols).

Director Anatole Litvak opens the play to include multiple views of the seedier parts of London, where Hester (Leigh) has voluntarily ended up. The sera is hard and tough - not the place for a shrinking violet trying to assert her authority yet failing.