Word: falstaffs
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...Scottish Protestant family. The father (Hume Cronyn), a penny-pinching petty tyrant, sells the child's sole heirloom, a velocipede. The grandmother (Gladys Cooper), a termagant, makes him a green flower-sprigged suit out of a petticoat. The great-grandfather (Charles Coburn), a sort of marked-down Falstaff, heartlessly clips his toenails in the waif's face, but soon shows that this was mere gruffness. The schoolboys tease the orphan about his flowery suit...
...those in the program notes which conclude, "Apparently there is no secluded corner of this troubled orb where the rotund Romeo does not have a counterpart; for, no matter what the customs or the climate, there are wives who are merry and husbands who are cuckolds." Albeit that wastrel Falstaff does get off a few juicy monologues on the vices of good and the virtues of evil, they are nothing one would want to add to his personal book of rules...
Charles Coburn, who plays the lead, is no newcomer to the Shakespearian field. Twenty years ago he was treading the boards in the quadrangle behind Sever when his own company gave summer performances around new England. Age and portliness have only enhanced his charms as Falstaff, that wistful pursuer of other men's wives. His supporting cast does credit to the Theater Guild's reputation for fostering real talent. A special word of commendation belongs to Judson Rees, the seven year old trouper who portrays Falstaff's petite page...
With the shift of scene to the invasion coast of England, the camera eye leaves the Globe, to return only at the picture's conclusion. Except for the transposition from "Henry IV" of Hal's brutal rebuke of Falstaff, a rebuke which seen against the background of the magnificence of the young king seems somehow more necessary than was apparent in the earlier chronicle play, Olivier has taken no major liberties with the text. What innovations he does make achieve a startling success...
...Falstaff's death scene, for which the speeches were lifted bodily from Henry IV, Part 2, is boldly invented. The shrunken, heartbroken old companion of Henry's escapades (George Robey, famed British low comedian) hears again, obsessively, the terrible speech ("A man ... so old and so profane. . . .") in which the King casts him off. In this new context, for the first time perhaps, the piercing line, "The king has kill'd his heart," is given its full power. In the transition scene which takes the audience from Falstaff's death to the invasion of France...