Chaussure à son pied

Made by one of the greatest practitioners of film making ever, this is a superb story with excellent characters. I defy anyone not to enjoy Charles Laughton's towering performance. There is so much in this film to revel in. I love the way the men constantly think they are running the show when in fact the women are. Laughton clings on to the last vestiges of male power but is no match for his intelligent daughter played by Brenda de Banzie. The opening shot alone is superb with the wooden boot creaking in the wind. Although this is a slightly ominous first shot, the film soon becomes peppered with touches of comedy throughout. The scene when Hobson walks back from the Moonrakers pub is wonderful and sublime. Purely magical cinema as he looks at the moon reflected in the puddles and tries to catch it. Lean lets us take in the scene instead of rushing it. This film is often overlooked when people talk about Lean's oeuvre. I have no idea why.

Hobson's Choice is a delightful old play that is set in Manchester in the United Kingdom during Edwardian times. Among other things we see during this film adaption of it are temperance marchers and suffragettes, reminders that women were too often looked on as chattel, especially if the man of the house is one Henry H. Hobson.

Hobson's pretty typical of the male Britisher in Edwardian times. As written by Harold Brighouse and played Charles Laughton, he's a blustering old tyrant who dominates his three daughters in every way possible. His wife is gone and the three daughters as he views it seem to have been put on earth to serve him. He pays none of them wages to live independently, but without realizing it he's grown quite dependent on them. Especially on his eldest played by Brenda DaBanzie.

She's practically running his custom made boot&shoe establishment so he can spend time lounging at the pub. But DaBanzie has had quite enough of that. If Laughton had his way she'd be living with him permanently. Brenda's got different plans. She's got her idea on a husband, a skilled craftsman who works in Hobson's shop named Willy Mossop. He's a mild mannered fellow who doesn't realize his own worth. But before the film ends, the worm does indeed turn.

If Hobson's Choice has a fault it's that the whole film centers around the three principals, no other characters are really developed here. But Laughton, DaBanzie and John Mills as Willy Mossop give absolutely perfect characterizations in their respective roles.

Charles Laughton gives one of his best screen performances for David Lean in Hobson's Choice. Imagine Captain Bligh as a comic character and you've got Hobson. My guess is that Hobson was very typical of his age in his sexist views of life. What his late wife must have put up with. His scenes with Brenda DaBanzie have a lot of the same spark that characterize his work with his wife Elsa Lanchester in other films.

Brenda DaBanzie was at the height of her career, this and her work in The Man Who Knew Too Much the following year are her best known roles. She matches Laughton every step of the way, they are really a delight to see and listen to, in fact the dialog in their scenes is so good you can enjoy just turning away and listening to the film.

John Mills also gets one of his best roles. He's a man who grows in confidence in himself through DaBanzie's efforts. In the end watch who is dictating to whom.

A friend of mine who's from the Manchester area said that the film was shot in the nearby town of Selford because it looked more like Manchester of the Edwardian era than Manchester of 1954 did. He also says that Laughton and the rest of the cast got the dialog and idiom of the Lancashire area down perfectly and were quite believable in their parts for a British audience, let alone an American one.

Hobson's choice is a great film from David Lean and should be seen again and again whenever it's broadcast.

A far cry from the pomp and spectacle of Lean's later, grandiose productions, this gently romantic comedy of manners is based on Harold Brighouse's 1915 play, and sits alongside Great Expectations and Brief Encounter as one of the best films he made in black and white. Lean's restrained direction allows the sparkling scripts pithy banter plenty of room to breathe, whilst deftly avoiding the static wordiness inherent to most stage for screen adaptations.

At its core, Hobson's Choice has a towering performance by Charles Laughton, whose Henry Hobson is a marvelous mixture of snarling brute and whimpering child, huffing and sputtering his way through scene after scene of delightfully sexist dialogue. Crucially however, Laughton resists the temptation to go over the top, instead keeping his Hobson firmly on the plausible side of caricature, thus ensuring that the pathos of this potentially unlikeable character remains firmly intact, and whilst we eagerly await his comeuppance, we never lose sympathy for the curmudgeonly old fogey. Also outstanding is Brenda De Banzie as the long suffering but incredibly strong willed Maggie, an amazingly strong female character, made all the more remarkable given that the film has its origins in a text now 90 years old.

The crisp black and white photography, courtesy of Jack Hildyard(who also collaborated with Lean on his epic Bridge on the River Kwai) is stunning, beautifully capturing the grimy charm of its Victorian setting, and giving a vivid sense of gritty imtimacy to the dank interiors. Scenes featuring a drunken Hobson are gloriously realised, and gives rise to one of the films most enduring images, that of Hobson attacking the moons reflection in a puddle. Likewise, production design is impeccable, the crews recreation of Victorian era Salford even stretched to Lean throwing rubbish into the river Irwell(the council, on hearing that a film was to be made on location there, spared no expense clearing the riverbanks and water of any such refuse the week before cast and crew arrived, oblivious to the fact that this disarray was precisely the reason Lean and co. had chosen to shoot there).

This amiable comedy is often overlooked in favour of Leans more epic works, but to dismiss it out of hand as something the director cut his teeth on before moving on to better and brighter things would be a grave error. Its unassuming nature, and admittedly slightly saggy third act aside, it's a film with considerable charm, wit, eccentric characters and some hilarious set pieces.

David Lean's last film in black and white, and his last set in England, is a gentle comedy about class mobility, marriage, and curmudgeonly old men making way for a generation of independent women. Lean had been adapting plays for the screen since the beginning of his career, and he'd already done a comedy with Blithe Spirit in 1945, but his experience by the time of Hobson's Choice is showing. His confident direction coupled with a top-notch cast and a great script make this a real treat.

The starting point of Hobson's Choice is a typically memorable comedy performance from Charles Laughton. Every film he is in is at risk of turning into The Charles Laughton show – rather a mixed blessing because he tends to overshadow everything else – but here his exuberant performance is offset by strong turns from lead players John Mills and Brenda De Banzie. Mills was in his mid-40s by this point, but with his fresh face and innocent manner he was still just about believable as the archetypal young lad. De Banzie was a stage actress who was unfortunately rare on the big screen. She makes another memorable performance in Hitchcock's second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Mills and De Banzie make such likable characters out of the central couple and it is their performances that hold the viewer's attention as much as Laughton's blustering buffoonery.

He wasn't known for his comedy direction, but Lean's sense of rhythm, particularly in the opening sequences and later in the famous scene in which Laughton drunkenly chases the moon's reflection in a puddle, is perfectly in step with Laughton's comic timing. The romantic scenes between Mills and De Banzie are directed with as much tenderness as any other love story Lean made, although he brilliantly punctures the sentimentality with a joke whenever there is a danger of them slipping into mawkishness.

Hobson's Choice is undoubtedly the happiest picture Lean ever made and, in keeping with the sweet tone, he has a real aesthetic approach to shot composition, with some pretty landscape shots in the park, and a focusing on facial close-ups. There is a real sense of harmony to many of the images, for example a recurring motif with leaves (and leaflets) blowing across the street, confetti at the wedding, and snow falling over the town.

When all's said and done though, it's the charming story and witty dialogue that makes Hobson's Choice a winner. Lean clearly knew by this point that the job of a director is to serve the screenplay and, avoiding the occasionally distracting expressionism of his earlier films, presents a story full of human warmth and gentle humour.

You're the owner of a shop that sells fine shoes, you have three daughters, lots of cash, and like to booze, but these girls they will not wed, you're hard earned stash will not be shed, as they're left without illusion, of your views. In response the oldest Maggie takes a chance, grabs the lad who's down below, leaves you askance, off she trots to set up shop, a little later you then drop, to find yourself in quite an awkward, circumstance. It's not too long before you're backed into a corner, as your Maggie has become quite a reformer, an ultimatum is presented, steams discharged, released and vented, then you retire to be placed, on the back burner.

Absolutely wonderful!