The Man Who Loved Redheads

John Justin has a brilliant future in the diplomatic service before him..... which he considers throwing away. He has met Moira Shearer and is madly in love. Finally he decides to be sensible, and has that brilliant career. However, he keeps running into beautiful, redheaded women who remind him of his discarded love.

Harold French's last go-around as a movie director is a stage piece in service of Miss Shearer, who plays all the young women who Justin loves, changing clothes and accents to suit each role. It's quite charming, and in the hands of a great actress, would have been a tour de force. As it is, it's a nice conceit, and makes it a pleasant porrait of Justin's character, who, along with best friend Roland Culver, grows older, and more alike.... towards the end, they even move the same way.

Miss shearer had shot to fame as the lead of THE RED SHOES, but her position in the industry was not what it might have been. Ballet dancers, for some reason, have rarely become true stars of the motion pictures, that most kinetic of the lively arts. She was born in 1926, began ballet training at 10, and was dancing at Sadler's Wells by 1942. After 1950, she concentrated more on the legimitate stage,, but while leading roles came her way -- she appeared in three movies directed by Michael Powell -- she appeared in only five films. She died in 2006.

This is a film based upon Terence Rattigan's play WHO IS SYLVIA, which in turn takes its title from both the original poem by William Shakespeare and its setting to music as a song by Schubert (a song with which my grandfather, a baritone, won much admiration). Rattigan also wrote the screenplay. This is definitely not one of Rattigan's happier moments. The film is ridiculously dated and corny, bordering on a travesty. The story is a simple one: the 'hero' played by John Justin fell in love at first sight at the age of 14 with a girl named Sylvia who had red hair and blue eyes, but he then lost contact with her. For the rest of his life he cheated on his wife and had a mews house in London for trysts with a succession of redheads who reminded him of Sylvia. Pretty silly, really. Harry Andrews plays a butler, Roland Culver has a jolly time playing a pal of Justin's who does the same sort of thing, though not with redheads, Denholm Elliott plays an earnest young son of the older Justin, and Kenneth More does a lively job of satirical narration (we do not see him). Gladys Cooper comes in towards the end with her usual assured style. It is Moira Shearer, seven years on from THE RED SHOES (1948), who plays all the redheads in succession, culminating in one who is a Russian ballet dancer named Olga. As Olga, we watch a great deal of Shearer dancing SLEEPING BEAUTY. Indeed, so much does the camera dwell on Shearer as a dancer, that one nearly forgets the film entirely. (By the way, the set and costume designs for that ballet production are simply appalling, quite a disaster.) This was the last feature film directed by Harold French, who by the way lived to be 100 and died in 1997. He made the excellent UNPUBLISHED STORY thirteen years earlier (1942, see my review). It is a pity that this film is based entirely upon wholly obsolete social codes of a bygone era, that its comedy is tepid, and that it is just not very good.

This engaging and witty production was star Moira Shearer's favourite of her film roles. She shines playing the four variations of 'Sylvia' though, perhaps inevitably, is most at home as Olga, the ballerina, with her performance of the Pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty Act 3 one of the highlights. As is her delectably danced Charleston. Her titian tresses are illuminated by Georges Perinal's photography, while the otherwise preponderance of pastel shades accentuate the slight unreality of the proceedings. Kenneth More, whose charm and humour come over as the narrator, would have been preferable to John Justin who nevertheless doesn't do a bad job. Several enjoyable performances include Roland Culver, who never puts a foot wrong playing the aware and insouciant Oscar and Harry Andrews as the unflappable, worldly-wise butler, Williams. Patricia Cutts contributes a delightful cameo as Bubbles, the dizzy flapper, as do also Moyra Fraser as the eccentric Ethel and Joan Benham as a haute couture model. Gladys Cooper is especially memorable in the final scene.

This film based on Terence Rattigan's play ' Who is Sylvia ? ' is for me a near total disaster. To begin with the dreadful, come on title should have retained the title of the play and the casting was misguided to say the least. Only in the final scenes of the film does Moira Shearer rise to any heights in acting, and the male lead John Justin never does. The majority of the film is virtually unwatchable as Shearer puts on embarrassing accents as both a ' working class ' woman, and then a Russian. Justin is wooden and they do not seem to have any chemistry at all, and to add to this pitiful first half the long ballet sequence added insult to cinematic imagery. Then in the last scenes Gladys Cooper brought the whole thing alive in a performance that had true resonance and beauty and the rest of the cast, as if by magic responded. Much as I admire Rattigan's work he is partly to blame by the patchy dialogue, and this is a pity because the play is a melancholy and tragic portrayal of the destruction of a life by giving all to idealized, romantic love.

John Justin plays a wealthy Brit who has never forgotten the redhead he met at a party when he was a teenager. He marries and goes along in life until he spots a redhead on a London street, arranges for a tryst at a friends house and embarks on a lifetime of meeting a succession of redheads roughly from 1917 to 1955.

Charming comedy keeps it all light and bubbly and features a solid performance by Justin and a super performance by Moira Shearer, who plays all the redheads. Shearer plays the teenager Sylvia, the cockney secretary Daphne, the Russian ballerina Olga, and the model Colette. It's quite a showcase for Shearer, including a lengthy sequence from the Sleeping Beauty ballet. Roland Culver plays Justin's jovial friend. Gladys Cooper appears toward the end of the film to add the perfect ending touch of irony. Denholm Elliott plays the son. Beautifully filmed in Technicolor, the entire film has the look and feel of something from Powell and Pressburger.