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David Lean backs up vicious wit with tender romance in this thrilling adaptation of Harold Brighouse's play. As Henry Hobson, a tyrannical bootshop owner, Charles Laughton Mutiny on the Bounty, Ruggles of Red Gap is a comical drunk of Falstaffian proportions. When Hobson forbids his daughters to marry (their unpaid labor supports his pub visits!), his eldest daughter defiantly sets her cap for Willie, the shop's best bootmaker. Brenda de Banzie The Man Who Knew Too Much, as the eldest daughter, hounds the flabbergasted Willie into marriage, resulting in a thriving new shop of their own. As Willie, John Mills, Great Expectations, The Big Sleep performs a gradual metamorphoses from painfully awkward to gently confident. Together, the sweet couple turn a crafty business deal into a loving partnership.

All Movie Guide

A "Hobson's Choice," as any slang expert will tell you, is no choice at all. In this 1953 filmization of Harold Brighouse's 1915 play Hobson's Choice, hero John Mills finds after several reels of evidence to the contrary that he does have a choice over how he'll conduct his life after all. Mills is the assistant to domineering boot-shop owner Charles Laughton, who lords it over his employees and three daughters by day, then tumbles through the streets on many a drunken evening. Laughton's "old-maid" daughter Brenda DeBanzie breaks free of her father's tyranny, marries Mills, and together with her new husband sets up a rival boot shop when Laughton refuses her a dowry. Father rants and raves, but finally agrees to a merger with his daughter that will assure Mills a large measure of freedom over managing things. The winner of the British Film Institute "Best Film" award of 1954, Hobson's Choice chalked up another international success for director David Lean. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 715515042116
• Source: CRITERION
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: B&W
• Time: 1:48:00
• Sales Rank: 4,982

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