Mesas separadas

I don't know why, sometimes I think it may have to do with previous lives, otherwise why do I feel so comfortable within the discomforts of this English seaside hotel. But the fact is that, often, I want to put it on and sit at one of the tables myself. I believe that Terence Rattigan is the main reason. What a wonderful writer. Then, Gladys Cooper of course, how can such a perfidious mother be such a pleasure to watch? Maybe is that explosive combination of Rattigan/Cooper. Wendy Hiller in one of her few meaty roles in movies, she won an Oscar for it and every nuance, every look is worth pages and pages of exposition. Exquisite. Cathleen Nesbitt is a joy to behold. Deborah Kerr, David Niven who also won the Oscar for his sad impostor, Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth bring a dash of Hollywood to the grayness of Bournemouth. Okay, now, dinner is served. Don't let it get cold.

Deborah Kerr and David Niven give stunning performances in this interesting character study of residents of a British seaside hotel forced to examine their feelings and emotions through the revelation of a scandal involving a blustery phony Major Pollock (David Niven. His relationship with the repressed daughter (Deborah Kerr) of a domineering mother (Gladys Cooper) is just one of the interesting aspects of this filming of Terrence Rattigan's stage play.

Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster are excellent as ex-lovers forced to examine their pasts. Wendy Hill excels as the keeper of the hotel, herself involved in an affair with Lancaster. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton do well as the young lovers caught in the claustrophobic setting dominated by snooping elderly women.

A very worthwhile, sensitive study of people trying to spend quiet days at a resort--very disparate people leading separate lives who must cope with their differences.

Deborah Kerr gives a deeply felt, genuinely moving performance opposite Niven's blustery major and Cooper's exquisitely well-mannered but narrow-minded mother. Niven deserved his Oscar for his moments of quiet desperation and crumbling of character--but Kerr is equally fine and should have had Academy recognition for this role instead of just a nomination.

Wendy Hiller is especially impressive and surely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the innkeeper who deals intelligently and sympathetically with the various crises facing her guests. She is a pleasure to watch as she struggles to keep her guests comfortable under trying circumstances.

This film came highly recommended to me by my parents, so I was anxious to watch it. Again, I realized that my impression of Burt Lancaster is completely different from what he actually is as an actor. His portrayal of an alcoholic man who gets a visit from his ex-wife (Hayworth) at the hotel he resides is again different from the boisterous, oafish guy that I always believed him to be when I was younger. Also at the hotel are a varied group of characters – including an oppressive woman who lords over her timid spinster daughter (Kerr) and a retired Army officer with some secrets, (Niven) who are all taken care of by the distant, yet sincere proprietress, Pat Cooper (the amazing Wendy Hiller). The film encompasses all of their separate plot lines, and interweaves them gradually until the climatic ending. There was no action in this film, just wonderful, straight melodrama and some great writing and acting. A year later, Lancaster and Hecht, the producers behind this film, went on to produce `Sweet Smell of Success', which is infinitely more searing and dark, but it was interesting to see the precursor to that film. I recommend this film for anyone who appreciates solid classic melodramas.

--Shelly

"Separate Tables" (1958) is a movie that I'd been wanting to see for many years, and it was worth the wait. A "Grand Hotel"-type of story that takes place at a quaint English inn by the sea, it features any number of interesting characters, marvelously depicted by a host of great talents. Thus, we get a love triangle between Burt Lancaster, his ex-wife Rita Hayworth (40 years old in this film and still looking very pulchritudinous) and the charming hotel owner Wendy Hiller, who really did earn her Best Supporting Actress Oscar here. We meet the repressed mess of a spinster played by Deborah Kerr, as well as her impossibly overbearing mother (Gladys Cooper, doing here what she did to Bette Davis in 1942's "Now, Voyager"). We get to know retired Army major David Niven, and learn his dark secrets. (Niven, too, earned his Oscar for this fine portrayal; he also costarred with Kerr in another 1958 film, "Bonjour Tristesse.") And finally, we encounter a pair of young lovers, Rod Taylor and the yummy Audrey Dalton, who can't decide if they should marry or not. Many dramatic encounters abound (some of them sexually frank for 1958), and Hayworth's mature and adult performance might come as the pleasantest surprise of the bunch. Personally, I would say that big Burt picks the wrong gal to go off with at the film's conclusion, but I suppose that this is a matter of personal taste. The bottom line here is that this classic film is a wonderful treat for viewers who appreciate good screen writing and who relish deliciously served acting by a bunch of real pros. And this nice, crisp-looking DVD only adds to the pleasure. So do yourself a favor and check into the Beauregard Hotel!

"Separate Tables" dramatizes several life-changing moments in the lives of characters living in a seaside hotel in England in the late 1950s.

These moments focus on sex -- lots of sex, actually -- drinking, class conflict, and career concerns.

The cast is one of the very best that any movie has ever been blessed with. Each star -- and this is an all-star cast -- is pitch perfect.

The black and white cinematography of the hotel's Victorian interior, and each character, is gorgeous. If you like seeing beautiful images on screen, you may enjoy this film for that reason alone.

For me, the problem was the overbearing nature of the screenplay.

Terence Rattigan, the playwright of the stage play on which the movie was based, was a practitioner of the "well made play." In the 1950s in England, new approaches to drama revolutionized the stage. Big Issues were being presented with New Frankness.

Rattigan adopted some of the subject matter and new freedom of this revolution.

So, you have a well made play that's trying to say something socially daring and important.

The problem for me was that the architecture of the screenplay became the most obvious focus on screen -- not Burt Lancaster's great passion, not Rita Hayworth's seductive beauty, not David Niven or Deborah Kerr's pathos.

Characters speak in full paragraphs, with complete punctuation. Characters who are supposed to be in thrall to great passions and confusions are able to deliver unbelievably well-crafted one-liners that sum up decades worth of life history.

At a point when he is supposed to be being driven mad by passion, Burt Lancaster, portraying a working class, drunken writer, delivers a precise summary of the class and sexual issues at play in his relationship to Rita Hayworth, an upper class fashion model and sexual tease.

Since this style of drama is out of fashion now, its intense stylization interfered with my suspension of disbelief. Lancaster's comments sound as incongruous as a chemistry lecture.

The movie does deliver some genuinely touching moments. Wendy Hiller is never less than fantastic. She's utterly believable as an admirable, self-reliant woman.

Deborah Kerr brought tears to my eyes, in spite of the humorous incongruity of seeing her and Lancaster together on screen here after their famous beach scene in "From Here to Eternity." David Niven was also quite poignant.

May Hallat, as the vaguely lesbian Miss Meacham, was a delightful hoot.

"Separate Tables" is a fascinating film in its depiction of women. The female characters are all paired, with one "good" and one "bad" version of each.

There are two young women, two working women, two older women -- one young woman is twisted (Deborah Kerr), the other is healthy (Rod Taylor's fiancée). There is one mean old lady (Gladys Cooper, who did the mean old lady so very well), and one nice old lady (Cathleen Nesbitt). There is a woman who has gotten through her life on her looks (Rita Hayworth) and one who has gotten through life on her hard work (Wendy Hiller).