Separate Tables
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Movie Reviews of Separate Tables
Movie Review: I Just Love Rita Hayworth
Summary: 5 Stars
As I stated in the title, I just love Rita Hayworth. This is a very good movie, no matter who the leading lady would have been.Movie Review: Not the Best Rattigan But It Will Do
Summary: 4 Stars
Wendy Hiller perhaps preserves best what we love about Rattigan's stage works, her dignity, her bitterness, the "insideness" of her despair, and her unfailing good manners and diplomacy. She's excellent. Most of the others, even Gladys Cooper and David Niven, seem to have been injected with essence of ham and turned loose on the set. They are way over the top! It's as though the actors were each trying to out-act the others in a giant free for all. Rita Hayworth is probably the most obvious case of bad acting, but she is actually quite moving in her part. Ann *knows* she's from a different world, *knows* that the others will resent her beauty, glamor and flame, so she's defiant. And Haywrorth can break your heart even in her beauty, particularly as it began to fade after the Aly Khan years. Here she's trying to whip Burt Lancaster (John, her former husband) into a sexual frenzy, and all of a sudden Rita--not Ann--doesn't really feel up to it. Some say she should not be receiving top billing in this movie, but I disagree. Watching her is the best reason to see this show.
The other reason is to see how American filmmakers tiptoed around homosexuality in the late 1950s. Niven's character is a retired soldier who hangs around the hotel acting terribly British and stiff upper lip, while Deborah Kerr's Sybil hangs on to his every word though he doesn't seem to encourage her affections. Then a small newspaper article appears claiming that he is in remand for a sex crime. In the movie you never really find out what Niven has done. All we know is that he was bothering girls in a cinema. In a sense it doesn't matter what he's done, dramatically the point is that this crime separates him from respectable society, and the boarders of the hotel make up a petition to get Wendy Hiller to ask him to leave, and the plot hangs on whether or not Deborah Kerr will join the haters, or whether she'll forgive Niven for his attentions to the young girls and cast her lot with his, or whether her hateful selfish mother (Gladys Cooper) will prevail.
In the play, the crime Niven committed was picking up boys--underage boys of 15 ot 16 I guess. Well, not picking them up but "groping" them. I wonder how this would go down today. Obviously it was too strong for moviegoers of 1958. Would Niven have won the Oscar if he played some kind of homosexual deviant? Would Deborah Kerr have pledged her love to him nevertheless? What about Megan's Law--wouldn't all the other boarders have been able to track his comings and goings on the internet? Rattigan's plea for tolerance is a loaded gun standing in the corner just waiting to explode.
Movie Review: There are some very peculiar overtones in this film
Summary: 4 Stars
Some peculiar overtones in this film
I'll let you read about the plot in other reviews. Suffice it to say, although overtly this is a sweet film about lonely people finding each other, it has some decidedly peculiar overtones. It belongs to a type of drama popular in the mid 20th century, which I personally call "group therapy." A group of relatives or friends--in this case the inhabitants of a residence hotel--has a status quo which hides their most secret feelings, acts, and incidents in their pasts. A catalyst occurs--in this case the arrival of a stranger (to all the residents but her ex-husband). Everyone reveals their secrets (voluntarily or not), and then enters into tears, recriminations, accusations, etc. By the end of the drama there is a new status quo--one that is not guaranteed to solve any of the characters' problems, but which enables life to go on.
But the most peculiar aspect of this film is the assumption that males are so hormonally driven that women owe them sexual satisfaction. Before the drama begins, one man's wife's sexual denials have led him to assault and a stint in a mental hospital (plus she divorced him). Her "selfishness" in not wanting to spoil her figure by having children (she is a successful fashion model) is castigated, and she has to show up at the hotel and repeatedly plead to resume their relationship, and this time, she has to agree to . . . well, you know. Early in the drama, another man's lack of a partner leads him to grope strangers in a movie theatre, which in turn lands him in jail. He is rewarded with a shy, younger, more upper-class woman he's always liked, but never had the courage to approach.
And sexual satisfaction is not all the film says males are entitled to--they're entitled to children, too. Another couple consists of a medical student who is perpetually exhausted by his incessant study of anatomy either in books, or on the girlfriend who keeps dragging him into bed. But that's not enough for him; he proposes marriage a couple of times a day. The girlfriend loves him, but is not sure she wants to be tied down by marriage. At the end _she_ has to agree to marry him and furthermore, have numerous children.
Meanwhile, a very nice woman (much nicer than the ex-wife) who is engaged to the first man, is completely left out in the cold when his ex-wife shows up. She wants him, but the ex-wife is much more beautiful and desirable, so she has to be generous and gracious. The filmmakers certainly aren't worried about the urges of any _females_ landing them in a mental hospital or jail.
Movie Review: good but dated
Summary: 4 Stars
a very fine ensemble cast indeed.. while the indiscretions of the Major (Niven) were considered scandalous, they would be out of date today. Lancaster is strong as the american torn between his passion for the beautiful Hayworth and the stability of the admiration of the innkeeper Hiller... i felt Kerr was terribly miscast as the simpering daughter of a rich matron, and would have been better if she had been 10 years younger when this film was made.. Niven is strong, but his role was not very big, and i questioned whether it was oscar material (over Paul Newman in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof).. the strongest performance was of Dame Wendy Hiller.. the strong and composed keeper of the hotel.. and managed to keep strong in spite of losing a man she loved.. Hayworth also strong.. not familiar with her work... but she worked as a woman still beautiful, clinging to her beauty to retain the man who worshipped her... a very well made film and still good todayMovie Review: Very English parade of American movie stars
Summary: 4 Stars
Plot- and setting-wise, "Separate Tables" is a very English affair. A seaside hotel, its stuffy residents... Every major character, however, is living his or her personal drama. The director Delbert Mann's (Marty, 1955) experienced hand got the very best of the plethora of acting stars - mature and very stylish Rita Hayworth, typically masculine Burt Lancaster, or both Academy Award winners for this film as best supporting actors - David Niven and Wendy Hiller. But the movie might very well belong to Deborah Kerr, who portrays a woman manipulated by her possessive mother. It's her character that somehow holds the key to the film's denouement and mostly influences the final impact on a viewer. If you like your movies talky and psychologic, but not depressing, don't hesitate a minute. Gets even better with repeated viewings.