Tables séparées

"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!

David Niven, who was never given the credit he deserved for his enormous talent, gives the performance of his career in "Separate Tables." Instead of playing the perpetual nice guy, he is a definite shady character. He deceives everyone into believing that he's a reputable person, especially shy Deborah Kerr. But soon, it is revealed that he's not the person he appears to be, with possible disastrous outcomes...

Featuring a fantastic all-star cast, including Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, and Rod Taylor, "Separate Tables" seems to be a forgotten masterpiece. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress, and won two...including one for the magnificent David Niven. I highly recommend this movie!

"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).

One would not expect such a very proper British movie (with bull in a china shop Burt Lancaster) to end up feeling just right, but it did. There are not many characters in a drama such as the one created by Terrence Ratigan and played so superbly by Wendy Hiller (somewhere in her career between the Salvation Army woman and the Princess Dragomira) who is romantic, realistic and does the right thing....as do nearly all the characters in the final scene. Quite right.

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