Kind Lady

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!

A kindly old dowager takes a penniless artist into her lavish household, only to find out he's got his own plans.

For a filmed stage play, the movie surprisingly never drags. That's a tribute to a tight screenplay and excellent staging. For example, catch how director Sturges in the first confrontation scene positions the four intruders in the foreground so they appear now to loom over the exasperated old lady (Barrymore), symbolizing their gradual reversal of authority. Then too, Sturges has basically only a single set to dramatize with, a real staging challenge.

However, the movie really belongs to the mild-looking Evans (Elcott) who manages an effortless study in civilized evil. His manipulations are so understated that his malignant nature sort of creeps up on you. It's one of the slyer incarnations in the history of bad guys. And get a load of the Edwards family, with the shrill Lansbury, the hulking Wynn, and the bratty Aggie. They're household help from heck, and we know Barrymore's in big trouble when this British version of The Beverly Hillbillies walk in the door.

Anyway, the tension stays on high as we feel trapped along with the kind lady. All in all, the movie's a minor gem of claustrophobic suspense.

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 ****

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.

After the demise of ITV ON Digital in the UK, I missed their old classic movie channel, "Carlton Cinema" as I have taped several good films from there, including "Portrait of Jennie (1948)", starring my favourite actress Jennifer Jones.In that film Ethel Barrymore played Miss Spinney, a partner in a New York art gallery who saves Eban Adams from apparent starvation by buying some of his art work. We recently had SKY TV installed which includes "Turner Classic Movies" a.k.a. "TCM".I only saw the last 2/3 of "Kind Lady" but stayed to the end despite my wife saying we had to go out to the shops!I was fascinated by Ethel Barrymore again playing an art connoisseur,(3 years after the aforementioned film), in a movie I had not seen before on UK tv.I just had to see it to the end.And there was a very young Angela Lansberry playing a tough wife of a criminal played with shifting accent by Keenan Wynn!.Of course Hollywood did round up a clutch of British actors and a right-hand drive vintage car to give the movie some authenticity.This film has a nightmare like quality.We could all visualise what it would be like for us to be old, alone and have no protector when a person inveigles themselves into your home on an apparant genuine pretext and then systematically takes over your whole house and possessions!Yes the conventions of film making in 1951 meant that producers could not allow criminals on screen to get away with their ill-gotten booty and you don't see the death of the faithful maid.Maurice Evans is Ok but I would have cast someone like George Sanders in the chief "baddie" role - much more menacing!(Perhaps he wasn't available).It is nevertheless a rip roaring melodrama and next time I hope to see the first 1/3 of this film.