Separate Tables

Though Deborah Kerr and David Niven are often singled out for their performances, it's really the sensitive, restrained, and vulnerable performance by Rita Hayworth and her relationship with the intense Burt Lancaster that will make you want to come back to this film again and again.

Kerr is worlds away from her elegant performance in "An Affair to Remember." Her Sybil is dominated by her mother (excellently played by Gladys Cooper), repressed, plain, and rather odd. David Niven plays Major Pollock, a war-story windbag with some disturbing secrets. Niven won the best actor Oscar for his performance. However, on the second viewing of this film, his and Kerr's acting seemed showy and became a little irritating. I'm not so sure they stand the test of time.

The less shrill moments with Wendy Hiller (also excellent), Lancaster, and the lovely, involving Hayworth were a welcome respite. Hayworth, more than anyone else, will break your heart in this film. She makes you care about what happens with her character, Ann. Perhaps their roles weren't as tied to an era as Niven's and Kerr's, but Hiller's, Lancaster's, and Hayworth's acting styles certainly seem more natural and real.

Cathleen Nesbitt also turns in a warm and lovely performance as Lady Matheson.

I definitely recommend this movie!

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.

"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!

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