by Miguel E. Rodriguez
Director: David Lean
Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda de Banzie
My Rating: 7/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 92% Fresh
PLOT: A widowed bootmaker in 1880s England with three unmarried daughters is thrown when his eldest daughter announces her intentions to marry his best cobbler and start her own business.
From Wikipedia: “A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered. … The most well-known Hobson’s choice is ‘I’ll give you a choice: take it or leave it’, wherein ‘leaving it’ is strongly undesirable.”
Ask ten cinephiles about their favorite David Lean films, and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts not more than two of them will even know Hobson’s Choice exists. It’s one of only two comedies Lean ever directed (the other being Blithe Spirit in 1945), and it’s one of the last smaller-scale movies he would direct before 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai made his name synonymous with big-budget cinematic spectacles. Hobson’s Choice oozes charm from every frame, has many well-earned laughs, and features a brilliant performance from the great Charles Laughton. I just wish it had a better ending. I’ll try not to spoil it for you, but…dang.
Henry Hobson (Laughton) is a widowed bootmaker in late 19th-century England with three unmarried daughters. The eldest daughter, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie), keeps house, manages the books, and essentially runs the business, leaving Henry free to drink himself silly at the local pub every night and come home drunk as a skunk. Being of an undesirable age – 30 years old – Maggie is also considered unmarriable. But she’s no dummy. See, one of Henry’s employees is a cobbler named William (John Mills, a legendary, prolific British actor), and Maggie notices when a rich patron praises William’s boots as the best she’s ever owned. So, Maggie hatches a plan that will accomplish three things: get herself married, steal her father’s prize employee, and start her own business with the best bootmaker in town. Hobson, of course, will have none of it, for various reasons…one of which is that, as the father, he is expected to pay a handsome dowry to the bridegroom, and he’ll be damned if he’ll give hundreds of pounds to a lowly cobbler, nor will he allow his “uppity” daughter to get the best of him. Comedy ensues.
There is a lot to like in Hobson’s Choice. First, there is the clever skewering of the class system, both socio-economically and along gender lines. Hobson is reluctant to pay anything to William other than his barely-livable wages. When circumstances force him to treat William as if he were a member of the same middle class as he, Hobson, is, he becomes enraged because…he simply has no choice. The idea of all men being created equal is alien to him. This same principle applies to his treatment and perception of his daughters. He may genuinely love them in his heart of hearts, but all we ever hear from Hobson is how bothersome and loud and “uppish” they are. To him, their sole purpose is to keep things neat and tidy and have dinner ready when he demands it. It never once occurs to him that Maggie, the eldest, would be capable of putting her plan together, let alone actually pulling it off.
I also enjoyed how a good chunk of the story parallels Shaw’s Pygmalion, at least in broad strokes. Will, Hobson’s prize cobbler, is as low-class as you can get, and has been treated as such his entire life. Part of Maggie’s plan is to get Will to behave and dress more genteelly, and her method is nothing short of brilliant. Rather than follow Henry Higgins’s approach – bullying with a heavy hand – Maggie very gently points Will in the right direction, stepping in with a firm hand only when necessary, as when it becomes necessary to deal with Will’s landlady, one of the funniest bits in the movie. At first, Will is taken aback by Maggie’s directness, but it’s fun watching how gradually he gets turned around. He may not be the spitting image of a member of the royal family after all is said and done, but his transformation is unmistakable.
Another great factor is the blustery performance by Charles Laughton in a role that, in my opinion, deserves more attention from film fans. He’s most commonly associated with Quasimodo or Captain Bligh or the barrister in Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution (1957), but in Hobson’s Choice, he convincingly plays a man who is painfully aware he’s being driven towards a specific decision he does not want to make. He’s been lord of the “manor” his entire life, and the idea that he might be forced to bow to his daughter’s whims is unbearable. He is the most fun person to watch in the film…although John Mills is a close second. I love his borderline incomprehension as Maggie patiently explains her plans and orders him about.
As I said, there is a lot to like in Hobson’s Choice. But, man, did that ending let me down. I was reminded oddly of David Cronenberg’s most recent film, Crimes of the Future (2022), which rolls the closing credits at the EXACT moment it becomes the most interesting. I have no theatrical knowledge of the play on which Hobson’s Choice is based (other than the fact it ran for over 130 performances), but if the play ends the way the movie does, and I had been a member of the audience at a performance of that play, I would have rolled up my program and chucked it at the curtain. I don’t want to give too much away, but its abruptness is breathtaking. In my mind, it leaves far too much unresolved, unless there’s something I missed in that final scene/conversation. I kept waiting for Hobson to make his eponymous choice, and for a second it LOOKED like he did, but it also looked like he had a devious plan of his own, and then…credits.
Oh, well, no matter. There is more charm in a single frame of Hobson’s Choice than there is in any two Will Ferrell rom-coms. I found it thoroughly enjoyable, even if it did let me down at the end. Since Lean directed my favorite movie of all time, I’m inclined to forgive it. I’ve seen most of Lean’s other films, and none of them committed this same blunder, so…c’est la vie. Hobson’s Choice is still worth seeking out.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 