Reeling Backward: "Hobson's Choice" (1954)

A Hobson's Choice refers to a false choice, in which the chooser appears to exercise free will but in actuality is trapped in a situation beyond their control. It originates from a 16th-century stable owner who required his customers to choose the horse in the stall nearest to the door, or none at all, in order to prevent his best mounts from overuse.

A shorter, punchier description of a Hobson's Choice would be: "Take it or leave it."

Henry Horatio Hobson faces just such a choice in the 1954 movie bearing that name, though not until the very end of the story. Ostensibly the main character since he's played by cinematic giant Charles Laughton, Hobson is really just the sun around which the other, more interesting characters orbit.

As played by Laughton, Hobson is a drunk, a bully, an abusive boss and a poor father. Since this is a comedy, Laughton has a great many opportunities to play the stumblebum, tremulously pretending the results of the copious amount of alcohol he has consumed do not exist. Drunks are the most common form of actors in the world, since every inebriated thespian strives to appear not to be that which they are.

The director makes great use of Laughton's physicality, his rotund carriage and face so enveloped in multiple chins and cheeks that he appears to be always peering out from some hole, like a satisfied critter that has dug a burrow and backed itself into a haven of indulgence. Laughton's sharp, intelligent gimlet eyes, though, inform the audience that there is a brain at work behind the fat and fog.

If you'd be surprised to learn that this director is David Lean, then like me you will discover that the Brit known for his extravagant epics actually made average-sized movies at earlier times in his career. This movie is an adaptation of the play by Harold Brighouse, with a screenplay by Norman Spencer, Wynyard Browne and Lean himself.

"Hobson's Choice" ended up winning the BAFTA award for best British film. I wouldn't quite put it on that pedestal, but it is a wickedly funny and smart picture that boasts somewhat progressive views on the balance of power between women and men.

The real central character is Hobson'd eldest daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), who runs his bootmaking shop and lords it over the two younger sisters (Daphne Anderson and Prunella Scales). She's much the carbon copy of her father, minus the drink and the mean-spiritedness. When she learns that her father has no intention of seeing her married because she's too valuable to his business, Maggie browbeats the simple-minded bootmaker who works in the basement, Will Mossop (John Mills), to become her groom.

Will is completely befuddled at first, acting the part of the humble employee following orders, even if they lead to the altar. Eventually, they start their own business and within a year have stolen away most of Hobson's trade, forcing him to accept a partnership with Mossop -- now tutored into a confident, savvy businessman by Maggie -- running the show.

De Banzie and Mills are terrific in their respective roles -- each received BAFTA nominations, while Laughton did not -- though they're quite long in the tooth to play youngsters. Maggie is explicitly stated as being 30 years old, and meek Will is probably even younger, while the actors portraying them were both in their mid-40s.

Mills wears an unattractive haircut with shaved sides and a prominent cowlick, which (intentionally?) resembles Adolf Hitler's odd 'do. This helps give him a boyish look, later replaced with a more grown-up one.

Lean & Co. have a great deal of fun with Hobson's drunken revelries, imbibing with the same handful of similarly-situated businessmen at the same bar every night. They trade barbs like fresh-mouthed schoolboys, but in the end Hobson seems to have the upper hand over the crew.

In one musical number, he leaves the pub so drunk he becomes fascinated with the lunar reflection in the puddles of the cobblestone street. Literally moony, he falls down a basement loading shaft and, while unhurt, facing legal and financial obligations to the proprietor. His younger daughters' suitors use this occasion to blackmail Hobson, with Maggie's assistance, into allowing them to marry, too.

I enjoyed "Hobson's Choice" and its sly take on the gender wars. It's not likely to be enshrined as a feminist totem anytime soon, since Maggie uses her new freedom in order to enter a new form of servitude with a different man. Still, her man and her station are both completely of her own choosing, and that's saying something.

Reeling Backward: "The Purple Plain" (1954)

"The Purple Plain" is two movies in one, each of which work decently independently but don't really meld together in any sort of satisfying or even logical way.

It's one of Gregory Peck's darker roles, playing a Canadian pilot in the British Royal Air Force assigned to Burma in the waning days of World War II. Squadron Leader Bill Forrester is widely ostracized within the unit, because of his daredevil flying tactics and his churlish behavior toward his fellow officers. The universal assessment is that he's "over the bend."

Despite sharing a tent with a man named Blore (Maurice Denham) for several months, they know virtually nothing about each other -- other than Blore's continuing insistence that Forrester would find his life more purposefully if was married like himself. Little does he know (since Forrester won't say), but Forrester lost his newlywed bride during a London air raid early in the war.

Since then, he's been on a one-man suicide mission in the skies.

The first half of the movie is taken up with Forrester gradually coming out of his shell with the help of Anna, a refugee from Rangoon who is helping the local Burmese refugees along with Miss McNab (Brenda De Banzie), an indomitable Scottish missionary. The quiet, soulful Anna soothes and calms Forrester, and he tells her the source of his pain when his wife was killed.

"After that I didn't want to go on living. You'd think that'd be easy enough in war, but it didn't work. I wanted to die, but I got medals instead."

Anna is played by Win Min Than, a luminous beauty whose appearance in "The Purple Plain" constituted her one and only film role. The romance between Anna and Forrester is notable for its fairly progressive take on interracial romance -- none of the other Brits or Burmese seem to regard it as any big deal. Though it should be noted that their only kiss is filmed from an obscuring angle behind a large boulder. The film ends with an image of Forrester climbing into a bed where she lies sleeping, which was something of a taboo circa 1954.

As soon as the audience gets engaged in this love affair, though, the manly adventure portion commences and Anna is not seen again (except once, briefly) until that ending.

Forrester and his young new navigator Carrington (Lyndon Brook) are assigned to fly Blore to his new assignment. The aircraft depicted in the film are Mosquitos, peppy little two-seat fighter/bombers depicted in other films such as "633 Squadron." Blore is ensconced in a hammock hung in the bomb bay. Unfortunately, one of their engines bursts into flames and they crash-land 20 miles deep into Japanese territory.

Movies of this ilk usually set up a race between the heroic stranded Allied servicemen and the relentless enemy hounding their tails, but here we never see or hear any trace of the Japanese. The only race is between the three men and their own impending demise from exposure to the brutal Burmese heat and lack of food and water.

Forrester determines that no rescue mission will ever find them, and urges them to march to the river that marks the boundary of enemy territory. The pugnacious Blore, a desk job man with little grasp of the intricacies of aviation tactics, insists they stay. Eventually Forrester forces the decision, and they rig up a stretcher for Carrington (whose leg was burned in the crash) and set off.

Director Robert Parrish manages to capture the overheated atmosphere of Burma, showing the sweat pouring off the characters' heads and staining clear through their clothes. He also adds a constant buzz of insects to the soundtrack during the sequence on the eponymous plain, which adds to the oppressive feeling of that portion of the film.

"The Purple Plain" was a box-office hit that was nominated for Best Film in the BAFTAs, the British equivalent of the Oscars.

The story was based on a novel by H.E. Bates, a military reporter who traveled to Burma during the war, and translated for the screen by Eric Ambler. It ends up feeling like two incomplete halves of a good movie. In the second half the central dynamic is the contrast between Forrester, who remains resolute and brave, and Blore, who becomes increasingly unhinged and eventually abandons his fellows.

This would seem to set up the idea that Blore's assertion had been true, that having a purpose in life -- i.e., a family and/or loved one -- allows a man to persevere. Forrester, having found love again with Anna, is able to endure. But this then begs the question of why family man Blore succumbs when confronted with life-threatening challenges.

So Blore is right for Forrester, but wrong about himself?

2.5 stars out of four