MAD ABOUT THE BOY: THE NOËL COWARD STORY (2023)

Brisk, appealing documentary on British playwright, composer, actor, director (etc.) Noël Coward comes without a fresh POV (or really any particular POV), but does give ‘The Master’ his due.  That’s more than you’ll often get from a Brit’s perspective where they still seem miffed that he split from England when taxes hit 90%, his pre-War style went out of fashion in the ‘50s (little but WAITING IN THE WINGS revived from this period), and he found better weather in Jamaica along with freedom from sexual threat as a homosexual.  Ironically, he had but to wait a few years before early ‘60s revivals of his best stage pieces (HAY FEVER, BLITHE SPIRIT, DESIGN FOR LIVING, PRIVATE LIVES, PRESENT LAUGHTER*), along with theatrical & cabaret revues of his songbook (is there another Brit who can stand comparison with the American Songbook?) and revivals of his films made with David Lean (IN WHICH WE SERVE, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, THIS HAPPY BREED) showed a resiliency no one expected.  Before that, with finances at low ebb, he’d risked playing nightclub entertainer and had a huge and completely unexpected success in Las Vegas.  (This episode in his life once announced as a project for Colin Firth.  Still in development?)  Coward may have come across on film as effete and effeminate, but perhaps his impoverished youth made him tougher than he looked.  (Lean didn’t offer him the Alec Guinness part in BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI for nothing.)  Excluding some rare home movie clips, this film is no more than a smooth cut-and-paste job, and it misses a lot about his productivity to rehash old news.  But it does give an honest sense of the man many won’t know.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The song ‘Mad About the Boy’ rumored to have been written in tribute to (surprise) James Cagney circa 1932.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  PRESENT LAUGHTER has been a star vehicle for an amazingly varied list of actors: Coward and Clifton Webb seem obvious, but also succeeding were George C. Scott, Frank Langella, Peter O’Toole, Kevin Kline and most recently Andrew Scott.