The Importance of Being Earnest ***** (1952, Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Edith Evans) – Classic Movie Review 1161

Writer-director Anthony Asquith delivers a beautifully graceful movie version of Oscar Wilde’s greatest work. He has the most polished and perfect cast at his disposal in this much revered, impeccably staged 1952 British classic high comedy of manners .

Michael Redgrave and Michael Denison have confidence and charisma to spare as aloof, snooty, wealthy eligible bachelors Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff who both pretend to be called Ernest to court Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew (Joan Greenwood and Dorothy Tutin, both delightfully flirtatious) because they both say they could only love a man called Ernest.

It’s thrilling to relish Edith Evans’s priceless famous stage performance as the imperious Lady Bracknell. Her outraged delivery of the line ‘A handbag?’ is of course legendary. Hardly any less wonderful, Margaret Rutherford and Miles Malleson are inspired as Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble, each dithering deliriously, stealing their little scenes grandly.

It remains, entirely properly, an artefact of the theatre not the cinema, and yet it still works perfectly on screen. Asquith keep it mostly faithful to Wilde’s play, though he divides some of the acts into shorter scenes in different locations.

Ian McKellen said Evans’s performance is ‘so acclaimed and strongly remembered that it inhibits audiences and actors years later’, providing a challenge for any other actress.

Remade in 2002, with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon and Judi Dench (as Lady Bracknell).

http://derekwinnert.com/the-importance-of-being-earnest-2002-rupert-everett-colin-firth-judi-dench-classic-film-review-1162/

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1161

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The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 with Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left) and George Alexander as John (right).