Tuesday 15 November 2011

Separate Tables

Just watched the classic 50s film Separate Tables again. It was based on two Terence Rattigan plays, released in 1958, nominated for seven Oscars and won two. It has an impressive cast: Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper, and Burt Lancaster. Niven won the Oscar for Best Actor and Hiller for Best Supporting Actor.

It is a sublime and sensitive portrait of people imprisoned by the constraints of society and their own personalities, facing a moral dilemma which manages to combine the parochial and the universal.

The acting is peerless, every one of the actors having an intensity and honesty which is remarkable and memorable.

If you want to see a window into the mores and customs of a certain time, one which has long gone but is also eternally with us, then watch this marvellous film.

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