Hobson's Choice

Henry Hobson owns and tyrannically runs a successful Victorian boot maker’s shop in Salford, England. A stingy widower with a weakness for overindulging in the local Moonraker Pubic House, he exploits his three daughters as cheap labour. When he declares that there will be ‘no marriages’ to avoid the expense of marriage settlements at £500 each, his eldest daughter Maggie rebels.

An unsung comic triumph from David Lean, Hobson's Choice stars the legendary Charles Laughton as the harrumphing Henry Hobson, the owner of a boot shop in late Victorian northern England. With his haughty, independent daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie) decides to forge her own path, romantically and professionally, with none other than Henry's prized bootsmith Will (a splendid John Mills), father and daughter find themselves head-to-head in a fiery match of wills. Equally charming and caustic, Hobson's Choice, adapted from Harold Brighouse's famous play, is filled to the brim with great performances and elegant, inventive camera work.


Overview
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.



Barnes & Noble
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 - Richard Gilliam
Hobson's Choice is one of director David Lean's best comedies, featuring a fine performance by Charles Laughton as the domineering boot-shop owner whose drunken behavior causes his family to rebel. Filmed on location in Salford, England, Hobson's Choice marvelously recreates the late Victorian era, and makes a credible stab at the linguistic flavor of the region. The story is told with Lean's trademark subtlety, most apparent in the wedding-night scene between Brenda De Banzie and John Mills. One of Lean's greatest strengths as a director was his versatility over a wide range of motifs and settings. The intimate, back-and-white domestic comedy of Hobson shows little evidence of the widescreen, epic grandeur that would inform such later Lean work as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India. Cinematographer Jack Hildyard does a fine job of keeping Hobson's Choice visually interesting.