Better Late Than Never *** (1982, David Niven, Art Carney, Maggie Smith, Lionel Jeffries) – Classic Movie Review 2430

Writer-director Bryan Forbes’s 13^th film from 1982 provided his penultimate movie, as his directorial career came to an all too early end.

The outstanding cast of David Niven, Art Carney, Maggie Smith and Lionel Jeffries are their usual classy selves and give the film an enormous lift. Forbes’s comic yarn (inherited from other sources in a story by Gwen Davis) isn’t particularly tasty, though the cast and handling save it, the French Riviera filming looks pretty in Technicolor and the soundtrack features songs by Henry Mancini and Noël Coward. Publicity alleged it was the first time Niven had sung on screen in 100 movies – Coward’s I’ve Been to a Wonderful Party.

In her only movie, Kimberly Partridge plays a 10-year-old orphan called Bridget, who stands to inherit a sizeable fortune after her grandmother dies. Entertainer Nick (Niven) is supposedly her grandfather but then photographer Charley (Carney) shows up and claims that he is the genuine grandpa.

It turns out that both men slept with Bridget’s grandmother, and she was never certain which of them produced her child. So Bridget then tries to select her true grandfather from Nick or Charley, who find themselves competing for her love or money as she tries to choose the lesser of two evils.

Bringing charm and laughs, Niven, Carney, Smith, Jeffries certainly struggle gamely against the rather flat, unsurprising material. Niven and Carney are delightful, Jeffries amuses as Bertie Hargreaves, the absent-minded attorney, and Smith turns in a cute performance as the governess, Miss Anderson.

The film is produced by the star’s son David Niven Jr with Jack Haley Jnr, son of the Tin Man actor. Also in the cast are Catherine Hicks, Melissa Prophet and George Hilsdon.

Much of the filming took place in Monte Carlo not far from the ailing Niven’s villa home La Fleur du Cap Mansion in the Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat region.

Forbes offered Carney’s role to William Holden who declined, unimpressed by the salary. But Forbes wrote in his book A Divided Life in 1992 that if Holden had made the film he ‘might have been alive today’.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2430

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