THE CONSTANT HUSBAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 874, 4 May 1956, Page 18

THE CONSTANT HUSBAND

(London Films-Launder and Gilliat) O wake up and find oneself, inexplicably, in a foreign country could, on the screen, be the prelude to melodrama. To wake up in a foreign country without finding oneself is, when the victim is Rex Harrison, a situation which bulges with comic possibilities. And in The Constant Husband Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat diligently and delightfully explore them. This is, in fact, the best British comedy I have seen this year, and if 1956 were to provide no better that would still leave us scope for lots of fun with the runners-up. Admittedly, it’s not quite flawless. Since ambiguity of situation and‘allusiveness in dialogue are the staple ingredients of the fun, the story-line (Val Valentine and Sidney Gilliat collaborating) lacks the classic simplicity which the perfectionist would demand. But, in its class, the show as a whole comes close enough to the best to command our admiration as well as our laughter. It is the sort of film which, one is persuaded, everyone enjoyed making. It has been directed with zest, the players are excellently cast, and at the top of their form, and good lively photography has been enhanced by pleasantly muted Techni‘color. And when all’s said and done the story-however bewildering its comic’ convolutions may be at times-has that vital spark of originality. which sets it apart from the adapted stage plays or novels which are so much the staple of the comic screen. In this The Constant Husband can. bear comparison with Passport to Pimlico, just as it might be compared with The Lavender Hill Mob for the gay manner in which it compounds felony and comedy. Mr. Harrison, I should explain, does not wake up in a foreign country-he just thinks he has, after encountering a Welsh-speaking chambermaid and a bunch of Welsh fishermen outside his hotel room window. But he is certainly -in a state of amnesia. In fact, the farther the film proceeds, the more it seems like the United States of Amnesia. To probe this dark backward /abyss of time, he has the help of an eccentric psychiatrist (Cecil Parker, heavily disguised in an airman’s leather jacket and» moustaches), who discovers that he is a Mr. Hathaway, -and possessed of a positively smashing wife (Kay Kendall) in Hampstead. But this is only the beginning of the trail. Why is he ordered out of the Ministry of Munitions-where he had been led to believe he was one of the bright lights in the back room? Why is he being blackballéd in the Adelphi? And can it be that he has met and married Lola the Human Cannon-ball during an earlier fit of absence of mind? Fleeing in panic back to Professor Llewellyn’s clinic, he discovers that two other wives have been traced. Now thoroughly disgusted with his other self, the unfortunate Mr. Hathaway announces that he will give himself up to the police. But even the consolation of that gesture is denied him. The police arrive first and arrest him for bigamy in respect of yet two more wives. Thus we come by a natural progression to the Circuit Court in which so many other British comedies have had their climaxes. Few, however, have made a more hilarious session of it, and

though Messrs. Launder and Gilliat have saved one more jest for the fadeout this ‘is the real climax of the film. Rex Harrison, whom this kind of part fits as neatly as one of his own Savile Row suits, is in the camera’s eye for most of the 88 minutes’ running time, and he doesn’t waste a second of it. His timing is superb-all in all, in fact, he must have had a wonderful time while it lasted.