Vintage Wine

Oh darlings; this is a kindly little story about an gentleman in his early sixties (Seymour Hicks) whose family have decided that he must end his profligate ways and come back home to live in his family's vineyard home. Unsurprisingly when we meet his family - elderly mother, sister, two sons and a really quite annoying grand-daughter - he regales against this proposition and returns to Rome. It's only there that we discover he has a secret and when his family have a guardian appointed to stop him further disposing of the family fortune it all, well, hits the fan. Hicks is on good form, though the part is hardly demanding, the humour a touch on the repetitive side and the comedy not too farcical to make one cringe in (not so eager) anticipation. Miles Malleson (bedecked in a cracking beard - who was 47 at the time of filming) makes for a interesting choice as one of his sons, as does Kynaston Reeves as the other (who was 42) but that all just adds to the daftness of the whole thing. Forgettable, I'd say - and maybe twenty minutes too long - but it raises a smile now and again if you've a forgiving nature....

Claire Luce was a favorite of Fred Astaire, playing across from him onstage in 'The Gay Divorcee.' Tragically she suffered a terrible accident in the famous table routine at the end of that play and never danced again. Legend has it that Astaire pushed hard to get Claire to play the movie with him, but this is difficult to believe since it was widely known she could no longer dance at all. Pandro Berman, RKO's producer, had seen that play and bought the book to make into a film and regardless of Fred's memory of events, Berman placed Ginger Rogers in the famous role (Rogers, too, had a bad fall in that same routine). Watching Claire in films like 'Vintage Wine' makes it obvious that Berman made the right choice; she doesn't have the ability to take over scenes, and her glamor shots simply aren't glamorous. Had RKO had made this film in Hollywood instead of in England, there would have been at least 10 actresses who would have gotten this role before Claire. She could act, but she had a slight screen presence and a heavy tread. Eva Moore completely outshines her. Regardless of Astaire's views, it's easy to see why she had a very, very short film career.

There are some of good ideas in 'Vintage Wine' but they're often wasted - like the guardian, assigned by the court, who simply disappears and is never heard from again.

These kinds of films were made to meet British regulatory environment - RKO had to make a certain number of films in England in order to sell their movies in England. This movie is very slow, very English, and quite likely it played the late night run in theaters and promptly vanished. And yet it is full of interesting ideas, worth watching once, although not for any of the acting.

One truly wishes for one of the great Hollywood actresses of that day - Harlow, Loy, Rogers, Dunne, Hopkins or one of the Bennetts - across from say, Francis X. Bushman.

Seymour Hicks' elderly sons think he is losing it at 62. He lives in Rome, instead of the ancestral champagne estates, has a mistress and has squandered a third of his fortune. They conspire with his mother to trap him on the estate with them as guardians. Little do they know the reality: he is married to Claire Luce, who thinks him 45 and they have a six- month-old son.

It's an amusing situation and Seymour Hicks -- best remembered these days for playing Scrooge for forty years on the stage and twice on film -- plays it to the hilt, full of twitches, while Miss Luce plays a veddy English Sicilian girl. The standout performance is Eva Moore as Hicks' mother.

It's a three-act stage comedy, opened out with some tracking shots and you may downgrade it slightly for that. However, this cut-glass farce is played impeccably by practiced hands and kept me laughing when I first saw it (when I was 62).

A 62-year-old man's who has fooled his much younger wife into believing he is only 45 fears the worst when he discovers that his overbearing relatives are coming to visit. Seymour Hicks - remembered, if at all, for his portrayal of Scrooge in 1935 - is the best thing about this silly farce, which he tries hard to lift above the level of mediocrity. It starts brightly, but the ageing husband's secret is revealed too early, leaving the plot with nowhere to go for the last half-hour.

Although this is professionally made and well acted, it's hardly the funniest farce I've ever seen. Tom Walls was doing very similar stuff back then but whereas Walls was a less talented actor than Hicks, his films were funnier.

This is just about amusing enough to keep your attention. Once you've started watching this, annoyingly you'll feel the need to stick with it until the end. That's mainly due to the well written, entertaining characters. Veteran stage actor Seymour Hicks actually delivers a very amusing and nuanced performance. You will take an instant liking to him, he's pretty cool. Likewise, although far from cool, Eva Moore's formidable and eccentric great-grandmother is quite a treat.

Amusing characters alone cannot compensate for not having a witty script which this picture sorely lacks. It's essentially just a one joke comedy. The plot is the sort of thing which might be used in an episode of an old sit-com but even the lamest sit-com would have had other jokes thrown in.

Maybe if you saw this on stage at your local theatre - and you like old fashioned farces - you'd probably enjoy this. But even the biggest fan of early thirties English comedy, would struggle to laugh at this on film. Nevertheless it's got a certain comforting warmth and charm about it. Thanks to the professionalism of the production, Mr Hicks' genuinely engaging personality and of course the presence of lovely Claire Luce, it's watchable - but Tom Walls' Aldwych Farces are much better.