The Talkies/The Stately Homes of England-and America
Bawer, Bruce
THE TALKIES THE STATELY HOMES OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA by Bruce Bawer W ant a foolproof recipe for a Picture nod a few years back to the visit, it is less sexual attraction than a speech on farm...
...Write: Hamilton, Box 15-139, Falls Village, CT 06031 "In [Polish] underground schools, workers were reading...
...Nor does Mitchum seem even slightly helpless and sickly...
...Wilder's treatment of the Eternal Things is different too: whereas most of Waugh's characters are notable for their extreme detachment from God, the very name of Wilder's protagonist suggests that he enjoys the special affection of the deity...
...Graves, the stars of Maurice, the have the feeling that while everyone in- Dickens to a courtly tyrant named Waugh, like Eliot, reveres God and most recent production by the ac- volved in the project may have read the Mr...
...Next, fill the lead head) from a script by himself, Tim himself trapped in the jungle, con- found anguish concerning the moral roles with James Wilby and Rupert Sullivan, and Derek Granger—is to demned to live out his days reading and spiritual poverty of modern man...
...This difference is a crucial one, and among its consequences is that, in Sturridge's film, the South American sequences simply don't work: the very unWaughian tone that Sturridge has established in the earlier part of the film simply doesn't allow for such an outre conclusion to Tony's story...
...as fast as they could be translated...
...Whereas the grimly humorous young Waugh intends, in A Handful of Dust, to express his high regard for thestately homes of England and all they represent, as well as his contempt for the social and political forces that have conspired to destroy the symbolically named Tony Last, the elderly (and considerably sunnier) Wilder, in Theophilus North, seeks to celebrate the irreverence of youth amidst the stuffiness and mendacity of some of America's own stateliest homes...
...To watch this sion is perfectly bizarre: a disillu- Waste Land ("I will show you fear in largely responsible for the current spate film—which was directed by Charles sioned Tony journeys to a remote cor- a handful of dust") and which, like of films about prewar gentlefolk and Sturridge (who also directed Brides- ner of South America, where he finds Eliot's poem, communicates a pro-their grand houses...
...North with fond, if considerbly faded, memories of the book from which it is derived...
...There are, to be sure, problems with the film, and they begin with Anthony Edwards, the young actor who plays the title role...
...Indeed, though A Handful of Dust is, in most of the ways that can be quantified, more consistent than Mr...
...and they complicate the "electric hands" incident with a resentful Scots doctor (played by David Warner) who—in the film's weakest sequence—drags Theophilus into court for practicing medicine without a license...
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...Theophilus North—which is, as it happens, heavily autobiographical—takes the form of an elderly man's memoir of long ago...
...Indeed, Mr...
...Then, arrange for beauti- The novel, in case you've forgotten, sins...
...And, in fact, each of the remaining chapters of Theophilus North recounts our hero's introduction to one or more very distinctive individuals: an extraordinary pair of rich children named Charles and Eloise Fenwick, a poor but literary young Italian named Mino, and so forth...
...THE TALKIES THE STATELY HOMES OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA by Bruce Bawer W ant a foolproof recipe for a Picture nod a few years back to the visit, it is less sexual attraction than a speech on farm policy is to ask critically successful late- tedious but raffine Chariots of Fire...
...I say this as someone who went to Mr...
...In terms of story and character, then, Mr...
...Theophilus explains that at various times in his youth he'd had various ambitions—to be a saint, an anthropologist, a lover, an actor, a magician—but notes that what united all of these ambitions was the desire to be "a free man...
...Todd, and by Anjelica Huston as a rich American woman named Mrs...
...New authors welcomed...
...Wilder's novel is a strange and delightful work, suffused with a gentle, romantic nostalgia for the energy, ideals, and ambitions of youth...
...Unquesdown: first, get somebody to write a sort of sharp thinking responsible for savory young man...
...with Bosworth's avaricious daughter Sarah (Tammy Grimes), who has convinced the old man that he is ill and non-ambulatory...
...A Handful of Dust is a young man's novel...
...The film that Danny Huston has made is surprisingly congruous with these lingering images and impressions...
...Some of Mitchum's line readings, too, old pro though he is, have the same stilted quality—the reason doubtless being that, Mitchum's impressive range (for a Hollywoodmovie star of his generation) notwithstanding, a courtly late Victorian plutocrat with a consuming passion for the writings of Bishop Berkeley may be a bit of a stretch for him...
...In the first couple of chapters we meet the eponymous hero, a 1920 graduate (like Wilder) of Yale who, having taught for several years at a boy's prep school in New Jersey, heads for Newport, takes a room at the YMCA, and begins working as a tutor and reader to the wealthy and their children...
...North with its source material, the latter film is more faithful in the way that really counts: its feel, its sensibility, are wonderfully close to those of the novel...
...In " 'The Deer Park'" Theophilus's use of his "electric hands" on an ailing seventeen-year-old girl (he has "a certain gift for soothing, for something approaching mesmerism") lands him in a degree of trouble...
...Tony's best friend, moreover, is faithful in the specifics of its plottributor to the New Criterion...
...that, in the earlier sequences at any rate, Brenda's infidelity seems perfectly understandable, and for a good portion of the film one actually finds oneself applauding Brenda and Beaver's romance—a response utterly at odds with Waugh's intentions...
...Robert Nozick [&] Friedrich von Hayek...
...His fellow clubman John the way of all flesh...
...These stories are altered considerably in the movie: the filmmakers, for example, turn Persis into Theophilus's love interest, and make her at once more mysterious and (by casting the director's gifted but mannish sister in the role) less beautiful than she is in the novel...
...and with his granddaughter Persis (Anjelica Huston...
...Though it is engaging, then, and though it contains at least two strikingly good performances—namely, those by Alec Guinness in the role of Mr...
...Todd...
...Meanwhile, back in Eng- tradition...
...21C Chicago IL 60614 Andrzej Waliekl on Polish liboralign Attemy Sheartnu...
...for a character in the Morte Arthur), makes perfect sense within the context combination of serious purpose and Voila: a stately, sophisticated, lovely- and to the English traditions that it of his comprehensively ironic vision of comic method works splendidly...
...Todd—which is so wackily on target in the novel—comes across like a misplaced reel from another movie...
...to to-look-at film, guaranteed to please symbolizes...
...The sally recognized as a guarantee of its house (each of whose rooms is named .L3 Waugh's ending works, because it novel's signal achievement is that its wit, elegance, and all-around class...
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...Yet Huston's film is by far the better adaptation...
...All these aims, moreover, had to do with people—but with people as individuals...
...The film's happy ending, furthermore, bears no resemblance to anything in the novel...
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...Rattery—this adaptation of A Handful of Dust is lamentably off the mark...
...Despite the similarity of their milieux, however, there are striking differences between the two novels...
...and though, years later, I could not recall many of its details, I retained an extremely vivid image of the character of Theophilus and of Newport in the summer, and a strong overall impression of light and air and charm...
...and a penniless Brenda—thrown encompasses sympathy as well as bitful photography, sumptuous produc- tells the story of a disastrous love over by Beaver—marries Tony's best ter scorn for Tony, Brenda, and Beaver tion design, exquisite period costum- triangle...
...And Lady Brenda Last is purse and Colonel Inch, Souki de novel, by contrast, is to have the feelTony's lively, charming wife, who Foucault-Esterhazy and Mr...
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...North is on the whole a most appealing film—a first-rate adaptation that might have pleased Thornton Wilder himself, and made Evelyn Waugh more than a mite envious...
...His vision Merchant...
...it is difficult to imagine this bear of a man being bullied by a Tammy Grimes into staying indoors for several years...
...Here, copy this This, at least, would seem to be the Brenda into an affair with the un- know anything about pigs...
...All of the major roles are, for the most part, engagingly acted, and the film is full of strong, interesting supporting performances—notably by Lauran Bacall (as a stylish landlady) and Harry Dean Stanton (as a faux-English gentleman's gentleman...
...Notice all the projects I did not entertain: I did not want to be a banker, a merchant, a lawyer, nor to join any of those life-careers that are closely bound up with directorates and boards of governors—politicians, publishers, world reformers, I wanted no boss over me, or only the lightest of supervisions...
...so Akbar...
...it is as sumptuous and glittery as Waugh's novel is spare and stiletto-sharp...
...Yet upon a novel by Evelyn Waugh—the execrable new British picture that has boy is followed hard upon by a it is, at the same time, a deeply serious miniseries version of whose Brides- been adapted from Evelyn Waugh's heartless divorce suit...
...If anything, Wilder's setting is even more upper-crust than Waugh's: while A Handful of Dust takes place in a number of highfalutin English residences during the early part of the Depression, Theophilus North is set in the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, during the summer of 1926...
...ttttal Respell ?der MIng Whim Oliear I.C...
...That this romance is meant to symbolize the amorality and irresponsibility into which men and women descend when they lose their respect for faith and tradition is thoroughly obscured...
...Graceful, ing that its director doesn't understand Bruce Bawer is The American Specta- detests Hetton and is beginning to grow Lady Anchorage and Princess Abdul the book at all...
...alike...
...Nine Gables' " is the story of Theophilus's encounters with James McHenry Bosworth (played in the film by Robert Mitchum), an elderly millionaire...
...The film's Beaver (Rupert Graves) and Brenda (Kristin Scott Thomas) are so attractive, and its Tony (James Wilby) so hollow a vessel (why does this vapid and incompetent actor keep getting cast in lead roles...
...Sturridge's casting likewise does damage to Waugh's material...
...Though exceedingly tor's movie reviewer and a regular con- tired of her dull, trusting husband...
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...Yet these are minor cavils...
...The ensuing events tionably, A Handful of Dust is one of screenplay that is based very faithfully the existence of A Handful of Dust, the are grim: the death of the Lasts' little the funniest novels of the century...
...Throughout the read it is to have the rare feeling any audience of hoity-toity Brits, state- Beaver is a thoroughly superficial novel, it should be emphasized, that this is a writer who thorough-side New Yorker subscribers, or An- young bachelor-about-London with no Waugh's tone is darkly but assuredly ly understands the people he has glophile voting members of the Aca- job, no prospects, and (aside from his comic: this is a book, after all, that created...
...Jar de THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1988 37...
...Physically, Edwards is right for the part, but there are times when the dialogue—which is deliberately somewhat formal, even unnatural, in its diction and syntax—sounds a little too unnatural coming from his lips...
...And the conclu- novel which borrows its title from The head Revisited, you'll remember, was wonderful 1934 novel...
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...it is that when Beaver pays a weekend an MP whose method of researching and even in details of setting and 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1988 dialogue—Sturridge's film fails utterly to capture the spirit of Waugh's novel...
...beloved mansion inherited by cou- characters to do the same...
...and he finds both comedy knowledged masters of the grand- book, not one of them managed to land, Tony is presumed dead, his and tragedy in the utter failure of his houses genre, James Ivory and Ismail understand it...
...Indeed, Sturridge directs the film as if it took place in the same graceful, soft-focus, gently lit demesne as Brideshead Revisited or Maurice or A Room with a View, and not in the distinctive, sardonically imagined world of Waugh's thirties novel...
...The film that has been based upon this novel—which Danny Huston has directed from a script by Janet Roach, John Huston (the director's late father), and James Costigan—is called Mr...
...For the hapless, obtuse Tonying...
...Huston fils makes it possible for a person who has experienced a strong affection for Wilder's novel to leave the theater with the feeling that his affection has been shared, comprehended, and reanimated...
...demy of Motion Picture Arts and indulgent mother) no visible means of contains people named Lady Cock- To view the film adaptation of this Sciences (who, after all, gave the Best support...
...Finally, offer a relatively small but absurdly solemn young husband and though some of his instincts, at least, colorful role to Sir Alec Guinness, father with a fanatical attachment to are correct—is hardly Waugh's idea of whose very presence in a film is univer- Hetton, his ugly neo-Gothic country R izarre though it is, however, a perfect modern Englishman...
...the transition feels abrupt, and the entire episode with Mr...
...North is nowhere near as true to its original as is A Handful of Dust...
...sheer boredom and whim that draw friends over cocktails whether they eighties English film...
...I was fortunate enough to read it during my nineteenth summer...
...Theophilus North, published in 1973 by Thornton Wilder (who was born in 1897, six years before Waugh), is a work of old age...
...if A Handful of Dust concerns itself with tragic endings, Theophilus North is a novel of happy beginnings...
...Tony Last is a callow, rather friend...
...North and is based primarily on two of these chapters, both of which are named for the estates at which they take place...
Vol. 21 • October 1988 • No. 10
