THIS HAPPY BREED (1944)

Noël Coward wrote and starred in two hit plays in 1939: PRESENT LAUGHTER, an autobiographically inclined sex farce about the literary elite; and this follow-up to the UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS dramatics of CAVALCADE/’33, now covering the years 1919 to 1939, but from a middle-class family house POV.  LAUGHTER hit B’way six times (Clifton Webb; Coward; George C. Scott*; Frank Langella; Victor Garber; Kevin Kline), BREED never.  Too topical, too local, it fell out of favor like so much Coward post-war (tagged patronizing/ condescending), its rep never quite joining in the Coward mid-‘60s revival.  A particular loss for this superb film which neatly trims some of the Father Knows Best bromides that hold down the play.  David Lean, in his first solo directing credit, brilliantly works inside tight rooms & passageways (note future directors Ronald Neame & Guy Green on staff*), smartly opening up the play with historical markers to ring in the passing years, highlighting incidents small as buttering a cat’s paws, large as a tragic car accident (stunningly realized not simply off-screen but doubly off-screen).  Coward particularly strong with wounding family squabbles that feel (and probably were) firsthand memory.  And with an all but flawless cast.  Holding back on his florid style, Robert Newton is excellent as the father (though Robert Donat, who turned it down would have been even better), yet can’t truly match the level of identification Celia Johnson gets as his wife and Stanley Holloway as the best-of-all-possible neighbors.*  With Kay Walsh’s prodigal daughter and John Mills' lovestruck boy-next-door not far behind.  All in a gorgeous, somberly refined TechniColor production, the film often intensely moving.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Johnson played on stage with Coward who needed little convincing he couldn’t pull off this character on film in spite of his own actual lower middle-class background.  And, yes, George C. Scott is the outlier in that PRESENT LAUGHTER list, excellent on stage in the Coward role with a great bit of repeated comic business, habitually turning straight at the audience as if he were passing a mirror, unable to not take an admiring glance.  Get a taste of this playful side of Scott in Paddy Chayesky’s THE HOSPITAL/’71.

CONTEST: *Uncredited (even on IMDb), but that’s yet another future director doing the brief opening narration.  Better known for acting, name him to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.