Hobson's Choice

1954

Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 92% · 24 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 91% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.7/10 10 8710 8.7K

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Plot summary

Henry Hobson owns and tyrannically runs a successful Victorian boot maker’s shop in Salford, England. A stingy widower with a weakness for overindulging in the local Moonraker Public House, he exploits his three daughters as cheap labour. When he declares that there will be ‘no marriages’ to avoid the expense of marriage settlements at £500 each, his eldest daughter Maggie rebels.


Uploaded by: OTTO
May 08, 2014 at 09:01 AM

Director

Top cast

Charles Laughton as Henry Hobson
Prunella Scales as Vicky Hobson
John Mills as William Mossop
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
808.49 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
24.000 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds ...
1.64 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
24.000 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Steffi_P 8 / 10

"There's brass in boots"

David Lean's last film in black and white, and his last set in England, is a gentle comedy about class mobility, marriage, and curmudgeonly old men making way for a generation of independent women. Lean had been adapting plays for the screen since the beginning of his career, and he'd already done a comedy with Blithe Spirit in 1945, but his experience by the time of Hobson's Choice is showing. His confident direction coupled with a top-notch cast and a great script make this a real treat.

The starting point of Hobson's Choice is a typically memorable comedy performance from Charles Laughton. Every film he is in is at risk of turning into The Charles Laughton show – rather a mixed blessing because he tends to overshadow everything else – but here his exuberant performance is offset by strong turns from lead players John Mills and Brenda De Banzie. Mills was in his mid-40s by this point, but with his fresh face and innocent manner he was still just about believable as the archetypal young lad. De Banzie was a stage actress who was unfortunately rare on the big screen. She makes another memorable performance in Hitchcock's second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Mills and De Banzie make such likable characters out of the central couple and it is their performances that hold the viewer's attention as much as Laughton's blustering buffoonery.

He wasn't known for his comedy direction, but Lean's sense of rhythm, particularly in the opening sequences and later in the famous scene in which Laughton drunkenly chases the moon's reflection in a puddle, is perfectly in step with Laughton's comic timing. The romantic scenes between Mills and De Banzie are directed with as much tenderness as any other love story Lean made, although he brilliantly punctures the sentimentality with a joke whenever there is a danger of them slipping into mawkishness.

Hobson's Choice is undoubtedly the happiest picture Lean ever made and, in keeping with the sweet tone, he has a real aesthetic approach to shot composition, with some pretty landscape shots in the park, and a focusing on facial close-ups. There is a real sense of harmony to many of the images, for example a recurring motif with leaves (and leaflets) blowing across the street, confetti at the wedding, and snow falling over the town.

When all's said and done though, it's the charming story and witty dialogue that makes Hobson's Choice a winner. Lean clearly knew by this point that the job of a director is to serve the screenplay and, avoiding the occasionally distracting expressionism of his earlier films, presents a story full of human warmth and gentle humour.

Reviewed by zetes 9 / 10

Just a great film!

Charles Laughton plays an alcoholic widower (and happy about it) with three adult daughters. The oldest of them, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie), is 30, and the other two are (I would guess) in their early 20s. He wants to marry off the younger two, but the eldest he finds useful to his bootmaking business. "You're too old," he tells her when she asks about her turn to be married. Well, Laughton has raised his daughter to be too shrewd for his own good! When faced with her father's challenge, she lands a fiancé within an hour. He is Willie Mossop (John Mills), one of Laughton's own craftsmen (and thus of a lower class). Earlier the same day, a rich woman had walked into the bootshop for the sole purpose of praising Willie's master craftsmanship. Maggie is a clever businesswoman, and she figures that she can help a man with Willie's skill succeed. Laughton, of course, disapproves, but Maggie is too strong willed. And, again, clever. She quickly and flawlessly develops plans to come out above her father.

I haven't exactly said what the mood of this film is yet. It could be a drama, but it is a comedy of manners and class. It glides along with such an amazingly graceful wit, and it's oh so gentle. The budding relationship between Willie and Maggie is simply amazing to watch. The engagement and marriage begins as just a business engagement. I was actually worried that Maggie, so efficient, would destroy her husband's will. But she softens as she realizes what a lovable man she has shanghaied. The film contains one of the most remarkably funny sex scenes I can recall; well, pre-sex scene, of course. The couple's marriage day is winding to an end, and we see that Willie isn't quite sure what's to happen between them as he slowly gets ready for bed. We see how it all worked out the next morning when he won't even let his wife set a teacup and saucer down before he rushes at her with the first kiss of the morning.

It's also a lot of fun to see an old blowhard like Laughton's Hobson get his bubble burst. Laughton is easily one of the best actors in history. We have nothing half as good today. He's not especially likeable here, but he is awfully amusing. Near the film's open, the only way he can get up the stairs to bed while drunk is to do it at a sprint with his arms held out to balance. Lean's direction is quite good, as well. I am not extremely familiar with his entire career; I only know his three biggest films. I'm glad to have finally got to a humbler Lean. This is at least as good as Lawrence. I have to mention one other greatly subtle scene: Hobson, p****d in both the British and American meanings of the word, spies the reflection of the full moon in a puddle of rainwater. He imagines it looking down on him with contempt, so he rushes to it and stomps it. When the water becomes still again, the moon is back. Oh wait, no! It's not the moon, but Hobson's fat face filling in exactly where the moon had been! 9/10.

Reviewed by TheLittleSongbird 10 / 10

Absolutely splendid

As a big fan of a lot of David Lean's films (not seen a bad film from him so far, though understandably some of his films are not for all tastes), Hobson's Choice didn't at all disappoint. It's one of those films that is almost on par with his very best work, and is deserving of more credit than it gets.

The cinematography is splendidly grimy and almost hypnotic, with very sumptuous but also suitably gritty costumes and sets and atmospheric lighting, and Lean directs with supreme confidence and tight control, allowing the humour to endear and charm rather than get too heavy-footed. While slightly over-the-top on occasions (though never distractingly so), Malcolm Arnold's score is delightful and fits within the film and period well. Hobson's Choice is superbly scripted, the comedy dialogue is deliciously witty and never got less than a smile from me while watching, while the more dramatic parts are very poignantly done with Maggie and Willie's relationship being written and portrayed with a real tenderness.

Hobson's Choice's story always captivates and never for me got tedious. It was funny, charming and sometimes moving, and has one of Lean's and Laughton's most unforgettable moments where Hobson puzzles over the disappearance of the reflection of the Moon from the puddles he staggers past on his way home, it is such a beautifully filmed, acted and directed scene with perfectly pitched timing. It is superbly acted by the three leads too, with Charles Laughton's magnificent performance being one of the best of his whole career in a role tailor- made for him (this is how to make such a huge impression without dominating over the story too much, a mistake made with Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn that felt like The Charles Laughton Show, with a lot of over-acting, and not enough of Hitchcock or Daphne Du Maurier's styles coming through).

On paper, Brenda De Bazie's shouldn't have been that sympathetic, but De Bazie's acting is so good, headstrong and heartfelt, that she often was the character I identified with most. John Mills, in an unusual role for him, gives a performance worthy of being called the best of his collaborations with Lean, there are a good number of layers more than any of his other characters in a Lean film and Mills conveys all those layers beautifully. All the cast are spot-on, in a cast that sees Prunella Scales in an early role, but it's the leads and Lean's direction that will be remembered chiefly with this film.

Overall, a simply splendid film on all counts. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox

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