J. B. Priestly’s class-conscious look at ‘collective guilt’ among London’s wealthy & entitled demonstrates its remarkable staying power in this traditional stage-to-screen adaptation, first of many.* Cleverly worked out, if too neat & obvious to take seriously as political or social commentary, yet such an entertaining package, and so loaded with performance opportunities, it earns its place on both stage & screen revival circuits. (As in a re-invention to startling, near abstract effect in the early ‘90s when director Stephen Daltry turned the entire first act into something of a dumb-show, staging action behind a torrential, surrealistic downpour.) This version, an early credit for later James Bond director Guy Hamilton, plays it straight as the well-to-do Birling family (stuffy father & mother, imbibing son, social daughter with a proper fiancé) see their intimate engagement dinner interrupted by Alastair Sim’s Inspector Poole. He calls after interviewing a young women on her deathbed, a suicide victim whose life was touched by each of the five family members. Pulling chains one-by-one to expose compromising actions, Sim navigates a series of confessions, breaking down their stories before his own story also breaks down. Guilt & repentance quickly becomes denial & relief. But Priestly has another turn of the screw before he’s done with the lot of them. No deeper than a wading pool, and just as unthreatening, this Morality Tale For Dummies is also irresistible boulevard drama, here slightly held back by packaging it with but one star performer in Alastair Sim, supported by a good, if faceless, touring cast and bombastic music cues.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *A high-rated new version (not seen here) from 2015 has David Thewlis as the Inspector. And try Priestly’s all but forgotten charmer about a provincial theatrical troop THE GOOD COMPANIONS/’33. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-good-companions-1933.html
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