Hobson's Choice
March 2009 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Mention director David Lean and one will most probably think of a big Technicolor epic, usually Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or Doctor Zhivago (1965). Those are magnificent movies to be sure, but Lean essayed many other types of film during his career, even venturing twice into comedy, once for Blithe Spirit (1945) and again, in 1954, for this delightful comedy of manners. Themes on which Lean was always keen were class inequality and struggle. In Hobson’s Choice, based on the play by Harold Brighouse, he treats them with both barbed and pratfall humor.

Charles Laughton, nearing the end of this career, plays Henry Hobson, a bootmaker of some renown in late-19th-century England, who has been widowed and left with three grown daughters. He runs his shop like a despot, expecting his offspring to clean up the messes he often makes while out drinking until closing time. The eldest, Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), suddenly takes things into her own hands, stating that she is marrying Hobson’s best bootmaker, William Mossop (John Mills), and moving out to open a new shop. The night before the wedding, Hobson drinks way too much and falls down the grain shaft of an anti-drinking establishment. He’s sued and must go back to Maggie for help. She manipulates the situation so that he has "Hobson’s choice" -- in other words, no choice at all.

Laughton’s acting is bigger than life in this movie, yet not without nuance; Mills is winning as an uneducated man who is willing to be manipulated by Maggie to better himself; and De Banzie is a whirlwind of energy and organization. One of the great talents of this film is offscreen, and that’s Sir Malcolm Arnold (then just Malcolm Arnold), the composer of the singularly effective score. Arnold keeps the humor of the movie going by using tunes that seem derived from the dance hall. The partnership between Laughton and Arnold is uncanny. When Hobson gets drunk on that fateful night, he staggers out of the pub to see the full moon staring up at him from a pool of water left amongst the cobblestones by a passing shower. As he drunkenly tries to find the moon, which of course eludes him, Arnold speaks musically for the man. There’s no dialogue. There’s no need with two talents like Laughton and Arnold in partnership. It’s a classic comedy scene that can be viewed over and over again.

The photography for Hobson’s Choice was achieved by Jack Hildyard, who lavished the same care on it that he might have given to some great psychological drama. In fact, were it not for Arnold’s music, the opening drawback shot of a rain-swept street transitioning into an interior pan of the shoes in the darkened shop might have seemed like the opening of a Hitchcock mystery. Hildyard used shadow and light in a magnificent, non-apologetic manner, and the crisp, restored, perfectly contrasted Criterion transfer preserves his intent faultlessly. The remastered soundtrack does very well with Arnold’s music and is superb with the dialogue. There is often a tendency to dismiss any sound that isn’t stereo, not to mention surround, as ancient, weak, and musty, but this boisterous soundtrack reminds us that the correct use of mono sound could produce some marvelous results.

There are not too many extras, but they are good ones. There’s a very entertaining audio commentary track from Alain Silver and James Ursini, the co-authors of David Lean and His Films. They obviously know their topic well and take great relish in sharing their knowledge. Also included is The Hollywood Greats: Charles Laughton, made in 1978, which pulls no punches in telling about Laughton’s homosexuality and the meaner side of his nature. A theatrical trailer and a thorough booklet essay by Armond White complete the extras.

Hobson’s Choice is an on-the-surface trifle made by a master filmmaker. One can laugh at it again and again, and pick up deeper meaning with each repeated viewing. When compared and contrasted with the director’s better-known Lawrence and Zhivago, one can marvel at David Lean’s flexible mastery of the film experience.

• Go Back