Le beau Brummel

Of all the influences of men's fashion created during the 1800s, none ever compared with the flashes of inspirations set by George Bryan Brummell. This film entitled " Beau Brummell " is a superficial look at the man and his statements of life and fashion. Born in London, educated at Eton and for a time, a close friend of King George IV, Brummell rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful, despite the fact, he was unfortunately, neither. Stewart Granger portrays Beau Brummell with a nonchalant but superior attitude and with the smug style of the up-and-coming, man-a-bout-town. Although, not in his actual life, Elizabeth Taylor plays Lady Patricia Belham, a woman of culture, breeding and social stature, who remains as elusive as Brummell's financial aspirations. Peter Ustinov plays the Prince of Wales and future King of England with convincing style and ease. Robert Morley, James Donald and James Hayter as Mortimer add to the fine cast as does Noel Willman who plays Lord Byron. As a result, this film may not exercise the accurate truth of the great Dandy of England, but does set the regal stage with which the real Beau Brummell was accustomed to. An excellent adaptation and recommended to all who wish to study the man, the times and the incredible influences he had in his day. ****

George Bryan Brummel (a stunning Stewart Granger) , a British military officer, loves Lady Patricia (Elizabeth Taylor who never looked more gorgeous under the loving gaze of the colour camera) , the betrothed of Lord Edwin Mercer (James Donald) . Despite her own desperate love for the scandalous Brummel, she submits to family pressure and marries Lord Alvanley. Brummel, broken-hearted, embarks upon a life of revelry. He befriends the Prince of Wales (unforgettable Peter Ustinov) and leaves the army, becoming subsequently the best-known rake and decider of fashion in Europe. As his affairs flourish, so does his disdain for his benefactor, the Prince. Eventually Brummel falls into disfavor, and it is only Lady Patricia who has any chance of helping him. Soldier, poet, adventurer, rogue, gambler, lover ! ...the Most Beautiful Romance in all History . Lover! Scoundrel! Adventurer! . Millions Know His Name, But This is the Flesh-and-Blood Man From M-G-M in Gorgeous Color. And thus was Beau Brummel's faith in love and women shattered. The turning point which changed a lovable youth into a sneering cynic who rode to success on a clotheshorse, whose only fortune was his fascination and whose fame lay in his follies.

Lavish production casts Stewart Granger in the character of the rags-to-riches dandy and chief adviser to the Prince of Wales well played by Peter Ustinov in his usual style . The latter reveals the Prince as a man not be laughed at , but sympathised with . Granger scores a great hit as the handsome dandy who works his way into the good graces of the Prince , son of the insane king George III and future George IV . Packing magnificent period piece cinematography by cameraman Oswald Morris , spectacular sets , great musical score by Richard Addinsell and glamurous costumes . The Regency atmosphere is wonderfully well caught in this agreeable portrait of the leader of fashion in his day , spendthrift and scoundrel . Shot on location in England's gorgeous countryside , many of the interior shots are from a 15th-century mansion , Ockwell mansion , located near Windsor Castle . It is a remake of the 1924 silent film by Harry Beaumont with John Barrymore . As George Bryon 'Beau' Brummel , Mary Astor Mary Astor , Willard Louis and Irene Rich.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Curtis Bernhardt . He was a Hollywood craftsman who worked in various Majors as Warner Bros and MGM, largely on the strength of Carrefour (1938) which proved so enduring that it was remade as Dead Man's Shoes (1940) in the UK and as Crossroads (1942). Bernhardt rapidly achieved a reputation as a woman's director with occasional forays into suspense with varied results and providing stunning casting in his impressive films . He directed one of Humphrey Bogart's least popular films, Conflict (1945). Soon after , he moved to RKO, which was entering its final chaotic decade, directing The Blue Veil (1951), a remake of a French film. He did a one-shot gig at Columbia, directing Bogie once again in the hopelessly set-bound Sirocco (1951) and this Beau Brummell (1954) that was one of the brilliant and convincing slices of history that MGM ever financed . Rating : 7/10 , better than average . This is a must-see for admirers of the Technicolor movies nearing its peak of perfection .

George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (1778-1840) was a leader of fashion in Regency England and a close friend of the Prince Regent, although they eventually quarrelled. Brummell was eventually forced to leave Britain because of debts and spent the latter part of his life in poverty in France. He appears to have a considerable influence on the men's fashions of his day, helping to popularise cravats, trousers instead of knee-breeches, natural hair instead of wigs and to make fashionable the restrained, sober elegance which was to be the keynote of gentlemen's costume in the nineteenth century in place of the ostentatious dandyism of the eighteenth. Outside the field of gents' tailoring, however, he was not a figure of any great historical significance, so it is perhaps not surprising that this film is not an academically serious biopic, but rather a celebration of a colourful figure in a colourful age.

The film is far from being historically accurate, especially as regards chronology. The events depicted here (the Regency Crisis of 1788, the Prince's marriage to Caroline of Brunswick, Brummell's rise in the Prince's favour, his fall from grace, the death of King George III in 1820 and Brummel's own death in 1840) historically cover a period in excess of fifty years, but here they are presented as occurring over a much shorter timescale. Rather oddly, the villain of the piece is William Pitt the Younger, widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers but presented here as a cunning, power-hungry schemer who refuses to allow King George III to be certified as mad (although he quite obviously is) in order to protect his own power. (The relationship between Pitt and the King depicted here more closely resembles that between the Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich and the feeble-minded Emperor Ferdinand I who, for political reasons, was never declared to be insane). In reality Pitt died in 1806, but here he is shown as outliving not only George III but also Brummell.

The film's politics are, in fact, rather inconsistent. Early on, Brummell, whose family although wealthy are of fairly humble stock, is portrayed as something of a radical filled with the spirit of the French Revolution and complaining about the class divisions within British society. Later on, however, he becomes as the Prince's friend an arch-reactionary, encouraging the future George IV to defy Parliament and to rule more as an autocrat than as a constitutional monarch. Brummell's justification for this apparent change of heart is that he feels that the Prince will make an admirably liberal ruler, far more liberal than Pitt, but the character played by Peter Ustinov does not really make us feel that this confidence is well-founded.

Stewart Granger was known for playing dashing heroes in costume dramas, so was well-suited to the lead role, although it contains less in the way of physical action than some of his other parts from this period. Ustinov gives a good comic performance as the petulant, self-pitying Prince, and Robert Morley a more serious one as the mad old King. I was, however, surprised to see Elizabeth Taylor, already a major star in her early twenties, in a comparatively minor role. She plays Brummell's love-interest Lady Patricia Belham, although he eventually loses her to another man. Apparently Lady Patricia, a fictitious character not found in the play on which the screenplay was based, was inserted to allay any suspicions on the part of the ultra-puritanical American censors that the friendship between Brummell and the Prince might be homosexual in nature.

"Beau Brummell" is not the sort of film which is likely to please the historian, but then it was never intended to. It was clearly intended as an enjoyable period romp and, to some extent, still works on that level. 6/10

Though it's hardly likely that we'll see it (except perhaps on TV's 'Masterpiece Theater"), a remake of this story would possibly benefit from a somewhat less cautious approach to what looks like a more interesting story than what unreels in this glossy costumer. Peter Ustinov and Robert Morley, of course, outclass the nominal leads and the production values are sumptuous, though often quite obviously studio/soundstage-bound. Miss Taylor, before she came into her own as a movie actress of some ability, is gowned and coiffed in a manner that makes her presence understandable, but the whole enterprise is redolent of what helped to bring the studio system to a grinding halt. Just where one hopes for a little astringency and a more adult take on the story's complications, that dreaded Eisenhower-era conservatism blankets the proceedings in an ultra-safe approach that one suspects left even the audiences of the time when this was released wanting substantially more.

Enjoyed this film, however, I doubt very much if England found this a wonderful film to view. I know for a fact that this film was shown special to the royal family and they were simply shocked at how crazy their ancestors were portrayed in this film. It was from that time on, that all films ever shown to the royal family were to be screened first. Peter Ustinov,(Prince of Wales),"The Bachelor",'99 played the role of a fat prince who did not have a mind of his own or in other words, was a complete WIMP. Stewart Granger,(Beau Brummell), "The Trygon Factor",'66, was a care free character in the British Military and said what he wanted and did exactly what he wanted and lived off people. Beau also became good friends with Prince of Wales, after almost spitting in his face on different occasions. Elizabeth Taylor,(Lady Patricia Belham),"A Little Night Music",'78, was very pretty and played a rather quiet and confusing young lady, who did not know just what she wanted in life. Entertaining film, but not the greatest, but excellent acting.