Separate Tables Movie Review

British playwright Terrence Rattigan specialized in intricately crafted dramas about ordinary men and women whose interior worlds were shattered when they were forced to face themselves truthfully for the first time. Unsurprisingly, many of his plays, like The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version, became splendid film vehicles for Britain's finest actors and actresses. When Separate Tables was first performed onstage as two one-act plays, Margaret Leighton and Eric Portman played different leading characters for each act, gimmickry that probably would not have worked in a movie. Independent producers Burt Lancaster, Harold Hecht, and James Hill hired Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh to play an estranged couple, and cast David Niven and Deborah Kerr against type as a phony war hero and the mousy spinster who adores him from afar. Lancaster and Olivier soon realized that they would not be able to work together and both Olivier and Leigh withdrew from the project. Lancaster decided to play the part that Olivier had vacated and Delbert Mann stepped in as director. Rita Hayworth, then engaged to marry co-producer James Hill, was quickly signed to play the estranged wife. These (mis)casting decisions resulted in half of a great movie, and even the half that isn't great is redeemed by the Oscar-winning performance of Wendy Hiller as Lancaster's discarded mistress. The more interesting half revolves around the self-styled Major Pollock, who faces social castigation after misbehaving in a movie theatre. The West Hampshire Weekly News details the facts of the case as well as his military career, and the first reaction of his fellow residents at the Beauregard Hotel is to throw him out. David Niven, usually smooth, elegant, and charming, shed all of these mannerisms to create a new character, filled with uncertainty and doubt. It was far and away the most challenging role of Niven's long career, and he won an Oscar for the part, considerably helped by Deborah Kerr's touching performance as his disillusioned admirer. Gladys Cooper once again played a domineering mama to the hilt, and other recognizable British types were sharply observed by Cathleen Nesbitt, Felix Aylmer, and May Hallatt. Rattigan firmly believed that “British is best” and that even his country's greatest flaws could be compensated for by individual acts of kindness and decency. There may have been a great deal of wishful thinking in Rattigan's world view, but it's hard not to get caught up in the plight of poor Major Pollock and the lonely souls who surround him.

1958 98m/B Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Rod Taylor, Gladys Cooper, Felix Aylmer, Cathleen Nesbitt, Rod Taylor, Audrey Dalton, May Hallatt, Priscilla Morgan, Hilda Plowright; D: Delbert Mann; W: John Gay; C: Charles B(ryant) Lang; M: David Raksin. Academy Awards ‘58: Best Actor (Niven), Best Supporting Actress (Hiller); Golden Globe Awards ‘59: Best Actor—Drama (Niven); New York Film Critics Awards ‘58: Best Actor (Niven); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘58: Best Actress (Kerr), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Black and White Cinematography, Best Picture, Best Original Score. VHS