One of my all time favorites.

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Really, it is. It's quick, clever and cute with great acting and directing. This is what movies were before over-reliance on CGI, over-the-top action ridiculous plot necessitated by one sequel/remake/comic book movie after another.Is this the greatest movie ever? No, not even close. It is very loveable, though.

Patriarch and widower Hobson is used to as much hard drinking as he likes and otherwise having his own way, both at home and at the family bootmakers, until his three daughters decide to wed. Led by the eldest, they make lives for themselves, even if it means making a few sacrifices along the way.This is a Victorian play, adapted for the screen in a masterfully directed production with David Lean at the helm, Jack Hildyard behind the camera, and Charles Laughton, John Mills, and Brenda de Banzie putting in first class performances in the lead roles. A very young Prunella Scales, John Laurie, and Richard Wattis (amongst others) fill out the excellent cast.The title deserves explanation; perhaps not everyone will be familiar with the phrase "Hobson's Choice", but it comes from a 16th/17th century Cambridge livery stable owner (the Hertz rental of its day I suppose). This Hobson became (in)famous for giving his customers two choices of horse; the one he selected for them i.e. next in line, or no horse. There are streets and a watercourse named for Hobson in Cambridge to this day; same Hobson.In this story, this Hobson eventually ends up on the receiving end of the same treatment as he dished out for years.I'm not from Lancashire, but I've known, (worked with, and narrowly avoided marrying) folk from those parts and I'd say the accents are not unrealistic. If English-speakers from other parts have a hard time understanding what they are on about, take solace; the accents may be realistic, but they are somewhat toned down by comparison with how they could have been; also, no one says " 'eck as like", "well I'll go to the foot of our stairs", calls one another "barmcakes" or any one of a hundred other possible Lancashire-isms.Grimy Salford (see L.S. Lowry) in the 1950s needed relatively little effort to pass as 'Victorian', yet those murky streets are at times somehow made to look magical in this film. The direction and photography are of exceptional quality, and the Malcom Arnold score underpins the performances nicely. The whole film is excellently crafted, and truly, it is hard to find anyone putting a foot wrong anywhere.You will either find Laughton's drunken antics very funny, or you won't, but the older I get, the funnier I think they are. Modern audiences may find the film's pacing a little slow, a little uneven, but that is perhaps the nature of the story as much as anything else.For me the only thing that spoilt my enjoyment of a recent TV broadcast here in the UK was the sound quality; just a few times an artefact of the analogue to digital to analogue conversion process must go awry, leaving some sustained musical notes with a very distinct 'warble' to them.First class, by Gum!

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

Neither is Laughton Henry the VIII or the Hunchback of Notre Dame (two of his greatest, earlier and most defining roles) but more of a Dickensian tippler of quite a cantankerous manner.As owner of a Salford boot-maker and shop, Henry Horatio Hobson is also the owner of three daughters and is getting to the stage where any marriage proposals among them rings loud bells in Henry's ears. He feels his oldest, Maggie, a brilliantly formidable Brenda de Banzie, at 30 has been passed over as the marrying kind - and that suits him just fine - and the two younger, he wants to choose husbands that suit him only.Such are Henry's scoundrel-ish and miserly ways, as he dodges his creditors and the Temperance Movement, he naturally - and amusingly - rubs folk up the wrong way. Soon, his star boot-maker, whose leathery creations are the sole reason why any and all of them are employed, gets snapped up by oldest daughter Maggie and the pair set up elsewhere in competition. John Mills, as Will Mossop, aforementioned boot-maker extraordinaire is beguiling as the gifted simpleton.The period detail is gloriously rich, as is the transfer print - good tonal range, without blemish and with good sound. The warmth and humour shine through and it's refreshing to see strong women taking the upper hand, not only over the rascally Hobson, but of their own lives and their place in Society (this is turn of the last century).The street and industrial scenes, filmed solely at Salford look so convincing as the century old they're intended, look a whole world away, now. In one scene, a local viewpoint by a sludge infested black stream, with smoke-billowing chimneys as a backdrop, Maggie and Will start their courtship, whilst seated on an iron bench.I notice that a young Prunella Scales plays Vicky Hobson, as the youngest daughter - and whose hairstyle looks exactly the same as it did in Fawlty Towers!Most film lovers know almost all of David Lean's pictures but this one stumped me for a long while - it seems to get left off Lean's boxed-sets but is available singly for a reasonable price and is definitely worth buying and viewing. All the David Lean ingredients are here - excellent production values, good characterisation and a damned good story, making a great period film for all ages.