BEAU BRUMMELL (1954)

After KING SOLOMON’S MINES/’50 over-performed (third highest gross of the year), M-G-M cast Stewart Granger in a series of period costume remakes & near remakes.  Unlike MINES, none topped (or matched) the originals*, but this one, a commercial disappointment ending the cycle, is the most interesting.  Adapted from Clyde Fitch’s stage perennial (half a dozen B’way runs 1890 - 1916), Warner Brothers used it for John Barrymore’s Hollywood debut of 1923, shot between legendary runs as HAMLET in New York & London.  Dulled by director Harry Beaumont, and with Barrymore off-form as the striving clothes-horse, it suddenly comes to stunning life in an extended third act, once Brummell loses fame, fortune & health.  This remake never reaches any heights at all, but has something going for it the middle sections where Granger’s Brummell, a social climbing commoner who’s become the Prince of Wales’ favorite, starts to become too intimate with his Royal BFF.  The bromantic chemistry between Granger and a deliciously plump Peter Ustinov (promising to diet for his one true friend) is both odd & touching.  Granger nailing the cutting ambition, arrogance and self-destruction even with little help from Karl Tunberg’s unfocused script or Curtis Bernhardt’s bland direction.  As to the men’s grand loves, Elizabeth Taylor is held down by unbecoming white wigs and that breathy, little girl voice, while Rosemary Harris’s Mrs. Fitzherbert, marriage habitually put off by the future George IV, hardly connects at all.*  Instead, the plum part goes to Robert Morley as Ustinov’s father, ‘Mad’ King George III, using his little screen time to grand effect.  Shot in England, a British production team has composer Richard Addinsell sounding like Miklós Rósza (no harm in that) and cinematographer Oswald Morris getting dappled, painterly sophistication on location.  Rubbish as history, this complicated relationship has obvious possibilities; a streaming event waiting to happen.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Maybe the studio found it a bit too bromantic.  Note the suggested title BEAU BRUMMELL AND THE BEAUTY!

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Never marrying the Catholic Mrs. Fitzherbert, the one-hour tv film A ROYAL SCANDAL/’96 lays bare his ghastly arranged marriage to Caroline of Brunswick with Richard Grant spectacular as the Prince of Wales in this rarely seen little wonder.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/10/royal-scandal-1996.html  

OR:  *Of the other remakes, SCARMOUCHE/’52 is best liked, but better remembered than seen.  Compare it with the original.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/09/scaramouche-1952.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/03/scaramouche-1923.html