Kind Lady

In the last period of her life when the First Lady of the Theater decided to join her brothers finally in Hollywood, Kind Lady was the only time Ethel Barrymore played the lead role. Parts were not readily available then and now for 72 year old leads. In addition Ethel's health was not the best. Margot Peters study of the Barrymore clan says that Ethel was not in the best of shape during the making of Kind Lady and production was halted a few times before it was completed. She was never again asked to carry a film, henceforth her parts would be supporting ones.

Her regal theatrical training stood her in good stead for the part of a genteel Edwardian widow who lives comfortably, but not ostentatiously in London at the turn of the last century. Still she's got some valuable paintings and antiques which arouse the interest of Maurice Evans.

Evans plays a ne'er do well artist who insinuates himself together with his gang in her home. They take the place of her real home staff and proceed to gradually strip the place and terrorize the old woman. Probably Ethel's real life frailties stood her in good stead in playing the part.

As for Evans he's one crafty villain, the rest of his gang consist of Keenan Wynn, Angela Lansbury, and Betsy Blair. This was Evans American screen debut. During his career Maurice Evans did not do much big screen work, preferring the stage and small screen. A lot of people consider his the best MacBeth ever done. But film audiences remember him best as Dr. Zaius in two Planet of the Apes films and television audiences know him as Samantha's father in Bewitched.

Evans and Barrymore are a well matched duo of classically trained stage performers who knew what to do in film as well. Kind Lady is well worth a look.

Maurice Evans has a field day as a supposed artist who tricks his way into the home of dowager Ethel Barrymore and then with the aid of Keenan Wynn and Angela Lansbury, hold her hostage in her own home. They try to make others believe that Barrymore has gone insane and proceed to sell her belongings along with the house.

George Sanders would have had great fun in the Evans part but the latter is convincing as the vicious con artist. Betsy Blair is appealing in the small role of his disturbed wife. Wynn and Lansbury have what it take as the evil co-conspirators.

The trio almost pull it off but we know that they will not. Utterly engaging and exciting.

Anyone who remembers Maurice Evans' kindly turn as Mia Farrow's friend in "Rosemary's Baby" may be shocked to find him so convincingly evil in this gripping melodrama. Ethel Barrymore plays a sharp, sensible woman who gets taken in by a con-man; he moves into her house and she quickly becomes his prisoner. The plot is infuriating (we in the audience feel like prisoners, too) and the inevitable turning-the-tables ploy seems to take forever to arrive. Still, Barrymore's plight is played to the urgent hilt, and Evans (along with his brutish cohorts, Keenan Wynn and Angela Lansbury) is downright despicable. The handling of this story, previously filmed in 1936 with Aline MacMahon, twists all the right screws with grueling accuracy, but calculated pictures like this may turn off many viewers before the final act. Ultimately, too many plot entanglements are left ignored and some crucial moments take place off-screen. Strictly as a masochistic thriller, however, the film is queasy and indeed suspenseful. **1/2 from ****

I realise that my passion for the Golden Age of Hollywood - the mid '30s to the mid '60s - has little to do with such popular genres as Westerns, Musicals and Film Noir; rather is it the Romantic cinema I adore. In the hands of a master director such as William Wyler the genre achieved greatness ( "Carrie", "The Heiress", "Wuthering Heights" and "The Best Years Of Our Lives"). Even works that are little more than good yarns ("Gone With The Wind", "All This And Heaven Too" and "Kings Row") leave me speechless with admiration for their sheer craftsmanship and style. I have to confess to swallowing with considerable pleasure what may be regarded as a by-product of the genre, Hollywood Gothic melodrama, the more outlandish the better ("The Spiral Staircase", "Dragonwyck" or "Ladies in Retirement"). When the genre depicted Victorian or Edwardian London as it so often did I am apt to experience frissons of delight ("Gaslight", "Moss Rose" or "Hangover "Square"). I thought I knew them all until one of our TV channels came up with one I had never heard of, John Sturges's "Kind Lady" of 1951. What a discovery! The eponymous heroine is played by that most commanding of Hollywood matriarchs, Ethel Barrymore, she of the gravel voice and penetrating eyes. It was rare for her to play the tormented party but somehow you know from the beginning that here is a character with the inner strength to overcome the wiles of her tormentors. If the film has a weakness it lies in Maurice Evans's rather colourless arch-villain. Although I have not seen the earlier version of "Kind Lady" I can well imagine the Basil Rathbone who played the part could convey evil with more sinister aplomb. But everything else about the film is absolutely right. Hollywood seemed to have a particular obsession with plots where villains attempted to drive their victims insane or else present them as insane to the rest of the world. If George Cukor's "Gaslight" is probably the finest example "Kind Lady" runs it a close second. With Ethel Barrymore's fine performance and excellent support from Betsy Blair, an amazingly young Angela Lansbury and John Williams as the solicitor who is bound to come to the rescue, superbly accomplished photography from Joseph Ruttenberg who did marvels with "The Great Waltz" and "Mrs Miniver" and a wonderfully lyrical score by David Raksin, to my mind the finest of all the Hollywood in-house composers, what more can one ask. Unadulterated pleasure!

Understated acting makes this production a gem. In the present world movie making is so slipshod as far as plots are concerned; however, I highly recommend this movie - the 1951 version - to anyone who loves old movies. Isn't Ethel Barrymore wonderful? and Maurice Evans is scary. Did anyone pick up on the fact that Rose's sister, Mrs. Harkley, is actually Angela Lansbury's mother, Moyna MacGill? I heartily recommend this wonderful movie.