Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn

Intimate and insightful, Thomas Hamilton's "Leslie Howard - The Man Who Gave a Damn" offers a rare detailed examination into the life and career of stage and film star Leslie Howard.

Though the film covers all the highlights of his film career, including his most famous role as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone with the Wind", it is really the new understanding of the man himself that makes this film so compelling.

The documentary is generously endowed with clips of home movies showing Howard in his off-screen life in everything from frequent trans-Atlantic traveller to devoted father of two children, Leslie Ruth Howard known as "Doodie" and her older brother Ronald Howard known as "Wink".

Although I had read and thoroughly enjoyed the biographies written by his children ("A Quite Remarkable Father" published in 1959 by Leslie Ruth Howard and "In Search of My Father" (1981) by Ronald Howard), it did not prepare me for the candor of their revelations in this film. Both appear frequently in interviews. They demonstrate through their recollections a balance of love and respect for their father but also an understanding of the complicated man. A man who appears to have been able to enjoy both a home life with his wife and children and at the same time relationships with other women which frequently kept him away from that home.

Doodie's recount of being so disagreeable to Merle Oberon, who Howard had introduced to his daughter as her future step-mother, is priceless. A few days after the Doodie meeting with Oberon the relationship which was to cause a divorce for Leslie and his wife Ruth was off and her parents reconciled. Wink's recounting how he, like his father, also fell for Howard's great love, his assistant Violette Cunnington is matter of fact and charming.

This meticulously researched film brings many rarities to the project which classic movie fans may have known about but had long assumed were lost. A sound recording of Howard saying the immortal words "to be or not to be" from his stage version of "Hamlet" from 1936 is stunning. Also of interest are the snippets of BBC wartime broadcasts that Howard made and even interviews with the star himself.

But for this reviewer it's the lighter moments depicting a warm character that I had only read about previously that are so enchanting. Home movies of a devoted father kissing the cheek of his adult daughter, playing in the snow with her as a young child are both touching and revealing. Even the home movies taken on the sets of films he appeared in show a more lighthearted side. A soft shoe dance with fellow actor William Gargan on the set of "Animal Kingdom" (1932) is a great example.

Hamilton's film expertly captures and shines a light of the principles and convictions of the man who truly gave a damn. Unwilling as many Brits in Hollywood were to ride out WWII in the United States, he returned immediately in 1939 to his home in England to help out the war effort in any way he could. He spent the rest of his life working on projects in film, radio and finally the ill-fated lecture tour of Portugal and Spain on behalf of the British government.

The desire to return from that tour one day early by a strange twist of fate saved the life of Derek Partridge this film's narrator and one of its authors. Partridge as a small boy was returning to England with his nanny when he was removed from the June 1, 1943 civilian flight at the last minute to make room Leslie Howard and his travelling companion. All the crew and passengers perished when this flight was shot down by Nazi warplanes over the Bay of Biscay. The motive remains a mystery to this day.

Although it is easy to speculate over what the future would have held for Howard, this intimate portrait of the man, expertly and lovingly crafted in this film, shows us what we did have of him - a remarkable man brought back to life in this remarkable film. I strongly recommend this film for not one but several viewings.

It's a pretty sorry state of affairs that Leslie Howard is best remembered for Gone With the Wind, for I always think of it like remembering Max Von Sydow for The Greatest Story Ever Told. Howard was all wrong for Ashley Wilkes, and he knew it, only agreeing to it because David O.Selznick promised him producer reins on Intermezzo. In truth, Ashley was an unplayable part, the Edgar Linton of Civil War literature.

Howard's real greatness was on stage in Britain in the 1920s and on film in the 1930s. His roles As Henry Higgins in Pygmalion and the definitive The Scarlet Pimpernel immortalised him even before the tragic air crash in 1943 that ensured he'd never get old in the mind's eye.

When I saw Tom Hamilton's film it brought back many memories of Leslie, and the story of how he came to begin his film is almost as fantastic as Leslie's career and life. And then there's the wonderful touch of having it narrated by Derek Partridge - familiar face and voice on TV in his time - who just so happened to have been one of the people who were taken off the ill-fated Flight 777 to accommodate Leslie Howard (he was only a 7 year old boy at the time).

Essentially, this has been a labour of love for five or six years for Tom Hamilton and his other half Tracy and I only wish it could be made possible for the film to be seen by more people than have yet had the opportunity. (We sadly live in a world where even Kevin Brownlow is struggling to get new documentaries commissioned).

Only last month, Tom set up a Kickstarter campaign page to raise the necessary funds to clear all legal and clearance costs and this will remain open for another week. Anyone who is in a position to contribute will be helping to bring Leslie back to the state of remembrance he deserves.

After watching this film, I had two initial reactions....that Leslie Howard was not the same brave and wonderful man I thought he had been AND that the filmmakers were amazingly frank and honest about him...something rare in documentaries.

This documentary has been in a sort of limbo for some time....and I assume it was either from lack of funds or difficulty procuring rights to some of the film clips. Either way, it's also interesting because the interviews generally look very recent but were actually filmed decades ago.

As I mentioned above, the film left me feeling a bit disappointed to learn more about Howard....but that is NOT a terrible thing as the film also was very honest. It did not gloss over the fact that he was a horrid husband and serial adulterer. And, unlike many accounts that claim his death was due to him being on some secret mission, it was, in fact, most likely had little to do with him or any sort of propaganda mission. I really appreciated this, as too often films about celebrities are not a warts and all production but are intended only to celebrate the good deeds of the man...not the good and bad. Well worth seeing and rather unusual in style.

I started this documentary mildly interested in its subject. About halfway through, though, I became quite taken with the subject's daughter who, as depicted onscreen, was a tough, clear eyed but not insensitive old gal, certainly fond of her dad and admiring of his virtues but able, as a previous reviewer stated, to see his flaws. Chief among these was serial adultery which, in Howard's case, included using his daughter as a deux ex machina to break up with Merle Oberon, a stunt that I would place somewhere between weak and appalling. In addition to chronic philandering there was a failing I noticed that seemed to escape the daughter, namely a supercilious attitude toward Hollywood which went something like this: "If I must endure the vulgarians on the coast then I will at least be compensated with lots of weekends at San Simeon". This is doubly snobby in that Howard feels superior to both the American film industry as a whole and to all the American film industry boobs who can't crack the A list.

Howard's good points, however, chiefly his anti Nazi patriotism and courage in wartime, along with solid craftsmanship as an actor, clearly more than balance the shortcomings and, as filtered through the charming, intelligent and acerbic eyes of his daughter, make this documentary's subject a beguiling combination of good and not so good. Is there any greatness in the mix? Not in my opinion, but you might have a different view. Give it a B.

PS...Big dropoff in talking head quality from Leslie Ruth to Howard's son, as well as various film historians and biographers.

There is nothing outlandishly wrong about this documentary, but there really isn't anything interesting or new, either about the man professionally or personally.