In Lean’s first overtly comic film since Blithe Spirit nearly a decade before, Charles Laughton stars as Henry Horatio Hobson, a miserly Victorian bootmaker whose three daughters wish to marry. Hobson consents to the younger women’s matches, but opposes the very idea of eldest daughter Maggie (Brenda de Banzie) leaving him. Infuriated and determined, she marries anyway, and opens a new, rival business with her timid husband (John Mills) at its head. Charming and funny, featuring committed performances (Laughton and de Banzie in particular excel), the film was not just a box office success, but winner of Berlin’s Golden Bear.

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of The Films of David Lean season.