HOBSON’S CHOICE

I'm not a huge fan of broad comedy and so I found the jaunty comedic music at the outset of this acclaimed film a little off-putting.

But I needn't have worried, since once the film (directed by David Lean) gets into its stride it's perfectly fine.

It's an adaptation of a play written in 1915 and even then the phrase 'Hobson's choice' was a well-established one, to mean a situation where superficially there might be a choice but in reality there is only one sensible or possible option.

The setting is Salford circa 1880 where Henry Hobson is a successful owner of a boot shop.  He's a widower who is perfectly content with his life - both his shop and his domestic household run themselves with little help from him, leaving him plenty of time to get tipsy at the local pub, the Moonrakers, with his mates.

He has three daughters and the story starts with him deciding that the the two youngest should be married off, the only obstacle being that he isn't prepared to pay any financial settlement to their husbands-to-be, as was customary in those days.

The eldest daughter Alice is the one who ensures that both the shop and the Hobson household runs smoothly, and she is not at all happy when her father foolishly tells her she won't be getting married because she's too old (she's all of thirty!).

Faced with the prospect of continuing to spend her days serving her rather ungrateful father, and being a strong-willed woman of great resource, she immediately sets about getting married.

Fortunately a suitable mate is to hand in the unlikely form of one of the shop's employees, Will Mossop, who is a dab hand at making footwear.  He's an unlikely husband because of his relatively low social status, emphasised by his timidity, lack of ambition, and illiteracy.

Alice doesn't mind if the rest of the town is amused (or shocked) at the idea of her marrying Will, because she initially envisages their union to be more of a business arrangement than a love match, given that she is going to start a rival boot shop with Will's help.

However love does quickly start to blossom, and the film is able to discreetly indicate that their first night together as husband and wife goes very well.

The most celebrated scene is one where the evening before his daughter's wedding Henry gets very much the worse for wear at the Moonrakers, and ends up on his way home falling through a trap door and then sleeping off his drunken stupor.  This results in him being served with a legal action for trespass and damage, although what he doesn't know is that Alice is behind the action as part of a cunning plan she has developed to ensure that her sisters also get married, with a settlement from her father.

The best scene is the one that follows, which is an extended one on the evening of Alice and Will's wedding, when Henry turns up to seek Alice's advice regarding said legal action.  There's an amusing exchange between Hobson and his new son-in-law in which the latter unhelpfully (but not maliciously) lists all the ways in which the legal action could prove ruinous.  Watching Alice's plan then work out step-by-step is a comic delight.

Needless to say Alice and Will's boot shop is a huge success whilst Henry's business and household go into a state of decline, which means that Henry himself spends even more time at the Moonrakers, with the consequence that his alcoholism is starting to endanger his life expectancy.

Alice and Will step in at this point to present Henry with his very own Hobson's choice, whereby his only sensible option is to accept their proposal to let them become joint business partners with him.  Fortunately he is able to do so with reasonable good grace and with some dignity retained, and the film ends happily.

Charles Laughton is of course perfect as the autocratic and blustering Henry Hobson, and John Mills is also fine as Will, initially shy but gaining in self confidence throughout.

The real surprise is the memorable portrayal of Alice by Brenda de Banzie, an actress whose career was mainly on the stage and who therefore was a new name to me.  There's a moment near the end where Alice has to defer to Will's demand that the new business be named 'Mossop and Hobson' rather then 'Hobson and Mossop', where the way she manages to convey conflicting emotions in her face speaks to her acting prowess.  Is she annoyed, or alarmed or simply proud of her husband's display of independence?   

In the end she seems pleased that under her guidance he has now become his own man. By the end of the film Henry cuts a rather sad and lonely figure. He is now a silent partner in the business he built, his former employee is now in charge, he’s an alcoholic who doesn’t seem to like his drinking companions, and at no point have we seen any affection between him and any of his daughters.  

Never mind, it’s a comedy and Northerners are tough folk.