Word: rattigan
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Separate Tables. Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper sit down to eat crow, served up by Playwright Terence Rattigan. The actors gnash away in splendid style, though in the end they seem to be left with nothing more than a mouthful of feathers...
Separate Tables. Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper sit down to eat crow, served up by Playwright Terence Rattigan in a ratty old resort hotel. The actors gnash away in splendid style, though in the end they seem to be left with nothing more than a mouthful of feathers...
Separate Tables (British). Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper sit down to eat crow, served up by Playwright Terence Rattigan in a ratty old resort hotel. The actors gnash away in splendid style, though in the end they seem to be left with nothing more than a mouthful of feathers...
...situation is one that Chekhov might have admired. It has the mysterious opacity of real life. It cannot be understood; it cannot be judged; it cannot be solved. It can only be experienced. But Rattigan, alas, is no Chekhov. As time runs out, he quite shamelessly gives the public what it wants, and begs the vital questions at the heart of the drama: Why do men sit down to the feast of life at separate tables? What is the meaning of the fatal separateness of human lives? And yet, the film will probably be received by millions of moviegoers...
...illusion is ably fostered by the actors. Niven is excellent, and Kerr and Hiller at times are inspired. But the master illusionist is Rattigan, and his illusion is based on the sly discovery that in an age of changing values, if one wishes to seem mature in emotional matters, it is not really necessary to see people as they are, but only to accept people as they seem. The fact is that Playwright Rattigan does not appear to care very much about human beings; he cares about theatrical effects. Nevertheless, his effects are far more subtly effective than those...