AN IDEAL HUSBAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 468, 11 June 1948, Page 19

AN IDEAL HUSBAND

(Korda-London Films) ECHNICOLOUR photography used with dignity and good taste; sumptuous settings, inspired work in the wardrobe department by Cecil Beaton, polished acting, and the wit of Oscar Wilde himself combine t6 make An Ideal Husband as satisfying to the eye and ear as any motion picture I have seen since the year began. That it is not so satisfying to the intellect is Oscar Wilde’s fault, if it is anyone’sand. he would repudiate with scorn the suggestion that realism or didactic purpose are any con¢ern of the artist, Indeed, for anyone embarking on the review of a Wilde play it must be 4 circumstance of some comfort that Mr. Wilde himself. is no longer here to answer criticism with® the public evisceration of its author. But those philistines who, thus fortified against their own pusillanimity, find grounds for complaint in the artificiality of the plot (it almost dislocates the long arm of coincidence) and unreality of the characters, have already been answered. As Wilde wrote of another group of his characters, "If they existed they would not be worth writing about. The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle. There are no such people. If there were I would not write. about them. Life by its realism is always spoiling the subject-matter of art. The supreme pleasure in literature is to realise the non-existent." That was reason enough for Oscar Wilde. For most film-goers, however, the supreme pleasure of An Ideal Husband will be the wit of its more inconsequential passages. There is no escaping the fact that the realism of life undoubtedly spoils the more melodramatic moments, with their emotional artificiality and dated sentiments, and that Sir Robert Chiltern-the ideal husband whose honour is rooted in dishonour-is thereby a personage of considerably less interest than the sophisticated dandy, Lord Goring: Even in the original play, Goring is favoured by Wilde’s best lines, and in adapting the text for the screen a slight change in the sequence of scenes and some wholesome sub-editing of the heavier passages give him an added prominence which is all to the good. In most departments, though, the film follows closely the detail of the play. It makes a tentative move out of doors-to Hyde Park corner and Rotten Row-but speedily retreats to its proper: environment indoors, and sticks fairly closely thereafter to the original stage-directions. So far as I could judge, the settings-which are luxurious to a degree rately seen on the screen-have been devised to conform. both to the general style of the period (1895) and to the specific direction of the author, even to the placing of tapestries and chandeliers, but I gained the impression that Mr. Beaton, giving rein perhaps to a personal foible, had gowned the women in Edwardian rather than Victorian fashions. Whatever they are,

however, they will not fail to delight most women who see them-for their voluminous and unrationed opulence, if for nothing else. Indeed, I feel that the choice of Miss Goddard for the part is more than justified by her performance. She has just the necessary air of difference to contrast effectively with the patrician dignity of Diana Wynyard, while an individuality of accent and a slight exaggeration in dress combine to bear out Wilde’s rather shavian description of her as "a work of art, but showing the influence of too many schools." Of the other players, Michael Wilding and Glynis Johns are outstanding. The former, as Lord Goring, has, of course, the advantage of a preponderance of good lines and it is only when he is being serious that he is in danger of being dull. That, in all fairness, is not entirely his fault. Glynis Johns, as Mabel Chiltern, has no such disadvantage to incommode her and her performance is, I think, as good as it could be. But the mention of these two is not intended to suggest that the other members of the cast fail to reach a high standard. The acting is almost all. that could be desired, but it is properly subordinated to the communication of the dialogue, for however excellent the players, and however luxuriously Mr, Beaton has clothed them, it is the dialogue that counts.