This movie is witty, ingenious and terribly gay. It will lift your spirits to see these characters chirping away, even if you are hospitalized in a coma.
Edith Evans is Lady Bracknell, she is the funniest of the bunch, with an ideal horse-face that can only be found in families with at least five generations of British gentility. Her declamatory, accented, pompous speech is a delight, even asking for a scone sounds like the proclamation of a peerage coming from her. Michael Denison is totally affected and delightfully artificial as Algernon Moncrieff, this man could only be interested in high fashion and decorators and frankly I think part of the comedy is Oscar Wilde's trying to convince us that Victorian society was so dedicated to denial and maintaining social appearances as to believe this man would want to marry a woman when we know he would be having a nervous breakdown over her gown, the length of her veil, the right texture of paper on the invitation and the endless thank you notes. Even the way he eats a muffin is decidedly gay. Michael Redgrave is Jack Worthing and not that far from Algernon in posturing, over-dressing and mannerisms. They are perfect for each other, and they could have possibly started together the first line of haut couture and interior decor in England, instead we are led to believe that he is interested in romancing and marrying that goose of Gwendolen Fairfax as played by Joan Greenwood whose only merit is consistently dressing like she is on her way to a coronation. One of her headdresses early on is a full English garden in bloom, compressed into her limited head space, a feat that would have made even Marie-Antoinette jealous. Dorothy Tutin as Cecily Cardew is perfectly annoying. She has the charm of a high-speed dentist drill, her voice is pitched and commanding, like a school mistress admonishing her charges, and is so persistently innocent and overwhelmingly pure one feels tempted to throw her head over heels into the Moulin Rouge for training on how to become a normal human being and stop being a professional virgin. Perhaps the best performance of all is the delightful Margaret Rutherford as the eccentric, literary, Miss Letitia Prism. Her facial expressions are exquisite, her perfectly full cheeks and rotund body being the product of endless afternoons consuming jam, scones and Earl Gray tea. One regrets not being able to read the voluminous manuscript that she mistook for the baby, I am sure it could be turned into a best-seller comedy.
Edith Evans is Lady Bracknell, she is the funniest of the bunch, with an ideal horse-face that can only be found in families with at least five generations of British gentility. Her declamatory, accented, pompous speech is a delight, even asking for a scone sounds like the proclamation of a peerage coming from her. Michael Denison is totally affected and delightfully artificial as Algernon Moncrieff, this man could only be interested in high fashion and decorators and frankly I think part of the comedy is Oscar Wilde's trying to convince us that Victorian society was so dedicated to denial and maintaining social appearances as to believe this man would want to marry a woman when we know he would be having a nervous breakdown over her gown, the length of her veil, the right texture of paper on the invitation and the endless thank you notes. Even the way he eats a muffin is decidedly gay. Michael Redgrave is Jack Worthing and not that far from Algernon in posturing, over-dressing and mannerisms. They are perfect for each other, and they could have possibly started together the first line of haut couture and interior decor in England, instead we are led to believe that he is interested in romancing and marrying that goose of Gwendolen Fairfax as played by Joan Greenwood whose only merit is consistently dressing like she is on her way to a coronation. One of her headdresses early on is a full English garden in bloom, compressed into her limited head space, a feat that would have made even Marie-Antoinette jealous. Dorothy Tutin as Cecily Cardew is perfectly annoying. She has the charm of a high-speed dentist drill, her voice is pitched and commanding, like a school mistress admonishing her charges, and is so persistently innocent and overwhelmingly pure one feels tempted to throw her head over heels into the Moulin Rouge for training on how to become a normal human being and stop being a professional virgin. Perhaps the best performance of all is the delightful Margaret Rutherford as the eccentric, literary, Miss Letitia Prism. Her facial expressions are exquisite, her perfectly full cheeks and rotund body being the product of endless afternoons consuming jam, scones and Earl Gray tea. One regrets not being able to read the voluminous manuscript that she mistook for the baby, I am sure it could be turned into a best-seller comedy.