Oscar Wilde

I am a fan of both Oscar and Robert but am very disappointed in Morley's portrayal of Wilde. Physically, he is both too old, too short, too plain and too fat to capture the magnificent physical presence of Oscar. I had trouble also with the script which practically obliterates Oscar's homosexuality. John Neville is too old and stilted to give us the beauty and appeal of Bosie. Oscar's well known sardonic wit is also missed in this interpretation. I much preferred Stephen Fry's later performance. When I think of Oscar, I think of glamour, vanity, beauty, genius, all of which is missing in this 1959 attempt. 5 out of 10 for Phyllis Calvert and Ralph Richardson.

I don't know much about Oscar Wilde the man. Instead, I just know him through his works. This film was on Turner Classic Movie's "Summer Under the Stars" honoring Ralph Richardson recently, even though Ralph Richardson was a supporting player. Instead this is the only film I can remember in which Robert Morley stars, and in the title role, and he did an excellent job.

The film starts out as rather a love story between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, with them meeting at an opening of "Lady Windemere's Fan", having what could be considered a romantic exchange of words, and then would not have likely seen each other again save the fact that Lord Douglas was being blackmailed by an unsavory character over some letters that he wrote to another man. Not knowing what to do he contacts Wilde. Wilde comes to Douglas' rooms and tells Douglas to say nothing. When the blackmailer arrives, Wilde humorously impersonates a member of Scotland Yard and threatens the blackmailer with prison. The blackmailer scurries off, scared to death. And from that point the Wilde/Douglas friendship/romance begins.

England did not have a production code in the strict sense that America did at the time, which dealt with all kinds of things besides sex. However, the film has Wilde claiming - and even seeming to believe - that he is just the dearest friend of Douglas. During his friendship with Douglas he makes the acquaintance of other young men, with the film insinuating that they are gay. They meet in groups, often in public places, and the rumors begin to fly. These rumors get back to the Marquis of Queensberry, Douglas' father, who is a brute beast and is determined to get Wilde away from his son one way or another.

What starts out as the trial of Queensberry for libel against Wilde turns into a trial of Wilde for the vague charge of indecency, which, from what I could gather, was not for a particular act, but for an overall lifestyle. How strange that in Victorian England you could be sent to jail for either libel (a civil crime in America) or just overall indecency - what you were, not a specific act.

Morley gives a very sensitive portrayal of a man who apparently is surprised that he might be gay, and it takes going to trial to make him really think about it. John Neville as Douglas can be sensitive and tender to Wilde, reckless in word and deed, and vindictive when it comes to dear old dad. Morley's Wilde seems blind to the "angry son" side of Douglas until it is too late. Phyllis Calvert does not get much screen time, but as Wilde's wife she comes across as a sweet woman who loves Oscar come what may. Ralph Richardson as the prosecuting attorney brings the trial scenes to life, although his constant opining in open court, trying to prejudice the jury, would never be allowed in courts today.

Dennis Price plays Robert Ross, the stalwart friend of Wilde who offers both advice and encouragement. How surprised I was to see Gregory Ratoff, a Russian immigrant who often played buffoonish executives and agents in American films, was the director of this sensitive character study and drama.

I'd really recommend this one. The acting is excellent and it is a rare chance to see Robert Morley in a starring role that required a great deal of range.

Whatever money was spent on this movie certainly didn't go on the sets, the furniture looks as though it was assembled by a local handyman and the trial scenes, which make up the largest part of the film, seem to be taking place in a converted church hall or school gymnasium with hastily constructed props. However this happens to be a very good film indeed, the superb acting carries the film and makes it far better than the more lavish Peter Finch version which was released about the same time.

I've always thought of Robert Morley as just a comic character playing himself but here he really becomes Oscar Wilde. You can imagine Wilde talking and behaving as he does in this movie . The verbal exchanges between Morley as Wilde and Ralph Richardson as the prosecutor are magnificent. Wilde enjoying the limelight, plays to the gallery and wins every one of the exchanges until he gets too confident, makes one fatal error and then the prosecutor starts to chip away at his defense.

The minor characters are uniformly well acted with Phyllis Calvert as Wilde's wife, Dennis Price as his loyal friend and Edward Chapman as the boorish Marquis of Queensbury . John Neville is probably a little too old to play Sir Alfred Douglas but his skilful acting makes it work . The final scenes between Wilde and his family are very touching.

Well worth seeing.

The other comment describes Sir Edward Carson as the prosecutor of Oscar Wilde. That's incorrect.

What happened was that, in a fit of madness, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquis of Queensbury (the father of his lover, Sir Alfred Douglas and the author of the rules of modern boxing) for slander, based on an accusation by Queensbury that Wilde was a 'somdomite' (sic). All of Wilde's friends tried to talk him out of it - Victorian England worked on a 'don't ask, don't tell' basis, and Wilde was quite safe had he done nothing. But his success as a playwright emboldened him, and he filed suit.

Carson was retained by the Marquis to defend him. The famous cross-examination occurred during the trial of Wilde's slander complaint. He was destroyed on cross examination, in such a way that the nature of his lifestyle became too public to be ignored. Carson, after he had won the slander case, actually tried to dissuade the Crown from prosecuting, but to no avail. A criminal prosecution did follow, in which Carson was not involved, ending in Wilde's conviction, and a 2 year prison sentence that effectively ended his career and life.

Carson, an Irish Protestant, earned my own condemnation for his role in opposing Irish independence. But in the Wilde case, he was responding for the defense, and he took active steps thereafter to prevent a prosecution. Wilde was the principal cause of his own legal destruction.

In Victorian England, with homosexuality forbidden and punishable by up to two years in prison, celebrated playwright and author Oscar Wilde finds himself defending his lifestyle in court after initiating a libel suit against the Marquis of Queensberry--also the tyrannical father of Wilde's young lover, who has accused the two men of "unnatural acts". Director Gregory Ratoff, working from Jo Eisinger's screenplay adaptation of Leslie and Sewell Stokes' 1936 play, gets a wonderful rhythm going in the film's early sequences--aided by Robert Morley's superb reprisal of his stage role as Wilde. Still, the later trial sequences (though well-performed and necessarily claustrophobic) are hardly suspenseful or exciting. Morley's Wilde is put through the proverbial legal wringer, while his useless counsel seems to want nothing more than to concede defeat. The finale, too, with Wilde freed but destitute and delusional, is disheartening. The Oscar Wilde story is certainly one of high drama and decadence, yet this document just scratches the surface of its possibilities. **1/2 from ****