Friday, August 02, 2013
"Hobson's Choice": David Lean's classic comedy about patriarchy in Victorian England
I remember the term “Hobson’s Choice” from my boyhood as an
encounter with “two things you don’t like”.
Actually, it’s means more “take it or leave it”, a term that originated
from the way a horse stableman in Victorian England treated some customers.
So it is with the 1954 David Lean film “Hobson’s Choice”,
which I think I vaguely remember seeing with my parents as a boy in the “neighborhoods”. It would have played at the MacArthur or
Ontario “downtown” in DC then; at the
time, going into town for a movie (the “Capitol”, “Palace”, “Columbia”, “RKP
Keiths”, and “Warner” (for Cinerama), all clustered together near the
streetcars, was a big event. Places like
the Ontario were more likely to show British or foreign films. I remember seeing Lucille Ball and “The
Long.. Trailer” downtown, and laughing when Lucy fell into the mud.
“Hobson’s Choice” (based on a play by Harold Brighouse) is a
comedy, too, a manners romantic comedy, of the type popular in the 50’s but not
so much today. Charles Laughton plays
the patriarchal Henry Horatio Hobson in rural 1880s England. Hobson runs a boot shop and treats his three
daughters as slave daughter, and insists he will pick out husbands for his
girls just when he feels like it. Early
in the movie he utters a metaphor comparing marriage to “the measles”. (Oh, the movie is in black and white.)
Particularly the oldest girl Maggie (Brenda de Banzie), whom he depends on so
much, is in danger of becoming a spinster (or “old maid” as in the card
game). But then Maggie marries the shy
employee Will (John Mills), and together they build a competing shop that
practically drives Hobson out of business.
A libertarian movie, perhaps.
No, Will doesn’t seem much like the likeable character by that name in “Days
of our Lives”.
Malcolm Arnold, British composer known for some engaging symphonies, wrote the rather light-hearted score
The film was originally released by United Artists (from “London
Films” and British MGM), and then passed
on to Janus Films, and now is part of the “Criterion Collection” of DVD’s on
Netflix.
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