When I started this silent film jog, the rehabilitation
of British silent film had already begun to gather pace and now critical
opinion is much more positive than perhaps at any point since Maurice, Anthony,
Percy and the rest, decided to “go live” with cinematic presentation. So many
things worked against British film, including America most of all – bigger
budgets, same language, same actors (in so many cases) and that little extra
you gain from shooting, far away in a sunny country.
Percy Nash’s Hobson's
Choice is not perfect, but it is a very entertaining adaption of Harold
Brighouse’s play that retains much of the characterisation that makes the
subsequent adaption with Charles Laughton, Brenda De Banzie and John Mills such
a favourite.
A drunken father, a strong woman who sees the way forward
and the skilled craftsman needing to be set free by such a woman… It may be
slow in parts but, by gum, this film has a satisfying story. First performed,
perhaps surprisingly, in New York in 1915 (Brighouse was from Eccles, Lancashire)
before a London transfer the following year, its message of emancipation and
self-determination had even more impact in 1920… just after a war won with
women’s help laid the foundation for concessions on suffrage (broadly
speaking),
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| Joan Ritz, Joe Nightingale and Arthur Pitt |
Our silent stand-ins for the mighty trio above are Arthur
Pitt as Henry Horatio Hobson, Joan Ritz as his daughter Maggie and Joe
Nightingale, who’d played the role in that first London run, as William Mossop.
As with everything else you can’t view this from the hindsight of Hobson’s to
come but it was the first film adaptation and was potentially truer to the
stage origins than David Lean’s 1954 classic.
It is what it is and it’s delightful even if Joe’s Billie
Mossop is nowhere near the catch that John’s is/will be. The three leads are
especially good and Ritz especially to modern eyes, up against a cartoonish
drunk and a cobbler without a clue (setting aside his ways with leather and
nail, mind…).
Set in 1880’s Salford – not a dozen miles from the Pankhurst’s
- Emmeline having been born in Moss Side in 1858, Sylvia in a place called Old
Trafford in 1882 - the scene is Hobson’s shoe shop, managed by a father with
three daughters. In his middle age, Hobson (‘obson, surely…) believes himself
to be lord of all he surveys but in reality, his eldest daughter Maggie is
holding the business together with her acumen. Amongst other things, Maggie
keeps on top of the cash flow as her father spends increasing amounts of time
drinking his dividend away in the local alehouse.
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| The King and his three daughters |
He has long since ceased to be a key asset for the
business and the quality is now all down to the skill of young William Mossop,
one of two shoe-smiths who works under the shop. Mossop is so good that a
regular customer, the well-to-do Mrs. Alethea Hepworth (Ada King) of Hope Hall,
Salford, insists that only he should make shoes for her family. She also tells
Hobson not to left him leave and, practical as she probably always is, tells
William to contact her when the inevitable parting happens.
Maggie can see the way things are going and, even though
William’s get up and go has seemingly already gone, she hatches a plan to not
only set him up but also to marry him: she’s done the maths and everything!
Before Hobson can feel exactly how much sharper than a
serpents tooth Maggie’s pragmatism is, we get his appreciation of his two
younger and ostensibly prettier daughters, Alice (Phyllis Birkett) and Vickey
(Joan Cockram), both are well placed with young male admirers, but just as Hobson can see them happily
married he tells Maggie that, at 30, she’s already missed the boat (or boot…):
she’s on the shelf.
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| An offer Willie can't refuse? |
Not quite and certainly not from Maggie’s point of view although
there is the small matter of William’s free will and his attachment to the flighty
Ada Figgins (Mary Byron). Maggie is a
wonderful creation – a Lancashire lass with her head crewed on who takes charge
of her family and like a benign Mancunian Machiavelli edges everyone exactly
where they need to be.
Old Hobson’s no help at all, guzzling away in drunken
delusion at the Moonraker’s Arms tragedy of a very northern kind turned into
comedy and indeed the play’s points are struck home inside locally-loomed cotton
gloves. How many of us have tales of drunken forebears and how many families
were saved by strong women taking charge as worn-out husbands and fathers
collapsed in middle age unable to sustain their effort and hold onto their
sense.
We laugh at the men because we know them as ourselves…
even in the lauded production of the play at Deyes High School, Maghull in the
late seventies (I was on curtains).
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| Hobson extracates himself from the troublesome cellar... |
Once Hobson has fallen drunkenly down into Beenstock’s storage
cellar, his fate is sealed as Maggie get’s the Fred Beenstock (Charles Heslop),
Vicky’s intended, to raise a claim for trespass, damage to corn sacks and
spying on trade secrets… She also gets, Alice’s beau, solicitor Albert Prosser (George
Wynn), to make the complaint. With his health failing – he is drinking himself
to death - Henry’s snookered, stuck between a rock and his daughter, left with
no choice but Hobson’s…
It’s a delight, everyone is set-up, the couples married,
William in awe and – the penny dropping – in love and Hobson starting to see
the upside of being cared for by his “thankless daughter” … but only because
one woman saw how it could be…
There are so many phrases to savour in the play, but this
version works with some snappy title cards and string performances especially
from Joan Ritz, who is well cast and anchors the narrative with some
determination and insight. Joe Nightingale and Arthur Pitt both get through
some excellent gurning but they’re supporting characters in a play that
revolves around Maggie’s vision.
Whilst the action rarely shifts from the sets, there are
some lovely locations – misty Salford streets, the Hobson’s shopfront, the
walk/stagger to and from The Moonrakers… whether they were anywhere further
north than Acton I can’t say.
I watched the film on BFI Player and it’s also one of a
number of copyright-free “orphaned” films the Institute released onto YouTube last
year - see below. Sometimes the folks in Stephen Street really spoil us!
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