An Ideal Husband **** (1948, Michael Wilding, Paulette Goddard, Hugh Williams, Diana Wynyard, Glynis Johns, Sir C Aubrey Smith, Constance Collier) – Classic Movie Review 1159

Producer-director Alexander Korda’s 1948 film of Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband is a civilised pleasure from another age, a total delight all round and a mini triumph. It was one of the most popular movies at the British box office.

Michael Wilding stars as a 1895 titled Englishman, Viscount Arthur Goring, who sets about to try to save the career of a respected prominent London politician, Sir Robert Chiltern (Hugh Williams), when he’s threatened by a blackmailing old lover, Mrs Cheveley (Paulette Goddard). It’s all the worse as Sir Robert is married to Lady Gertrude Chiltern (Diana Wynyard), an stiffly upright woman intolerant of the slightest character flaws.

Sir Robert is preparing to expose a financial scandal but Mrs Cheveley has invested heavily in the shady venture. In an inspired piece of unexpected casting, Goddard gives a sparkling performance as Mrs Cheveley, the mysterious lady who attempts to force Sir Robert into giving a speech in Parliament that supports her interests.

And the elegant Wilding might have been born to play Wilde. How he relishes Wilde’s witty lines! Williams, Wynyard, Glynis Johns as Sir Robert’s sister and Sir C Aubrey Smith as Goring’s Father, the Earl of Caversham, are all superbly stylish too.

Indeed the whole film is a bit of a style object. There is plenty of admirable high quality in the glorious-looking production to match the style of the Wildean epigrams – especially Georges Périnal’s Technicolor cinematography, the Cecil Beaton costumes and the Vincent Korda sets. His director brother Alexander gets the film moving along gracefully and enjoyably.

Above all, this is an exquisite-looking, beautiful production, in gorgeous, subtly muted colours, and today the TV print is perfect so the film can be seen in all its original glory.

Screenwriter Lajos Bíró makes a lovely job of adapting the play for the screen, though what a nice, easy job that must have been!

In the end of an era, it was the last film as producer and director of Alexander Korda, the great 30s and 40s movie mogul in Britain.

It is the film debut of character actor Michael Ward (playing Tommy Tafford).

It was remade by Oliver Parker in 1999 as An Ideal Husband.

Madeleine Carroll starred in a kind of follow-up, The Fan, in 1949, a film of Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Wilding was featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s Under Capricorn (1949) and Stage Fright (1950). ‘I was the worst actor I ever came across,’ he said.

Shooting took 66 days. Goddard’s husband Burgess Meredith was making Mine Own Executioner for Korda at the same time. The two stars then went to Dublin to appear in the play Winterset.

Filming was held up by a strike of the crew, whose union objected to Goddard’s hairdresser being American, saying an English person could do the job.

Korda lent some of the costumes for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to the Duke of Edinburgh.

In America the Sons of Liberty organisation, opposed to British policies, picketed this film, Mine Own Executioner and Anna Karenina, and they were withdrawn from some American cinemas.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1159

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/