The Director's Nephew, on: That Hamilton Woman (1941)
In 2009,
the Criterion Collection released on DVD That Hamilton Woman - the 1941 classic starring Vivien Leigh
and Laurence Olivier, directed by Alexander Korda, which I have just watched for the first time, twice, in the past three days. The film was great, but the catalyst for this review is really a most enjoyable bonus feature on the disk.
Michael Korda –
the director's nephew, and son of the film's Art Director (Vincent), contributed
a lively half-hour interview, which I also ended up watching twice. His Wiki page
reports that he is, at the age of 86, still with us, thank God. He’s a gifted impressionist and raconteur.
He worked for more than four decades as a senior editor at Simon and Schuster
in New York, and is responsible for having published scads of books by "high-profile" types, including two former presidents.
Before getting on to the film, a little background.
Two years before That Hamilton Woman was released, Leigh had made it big-time with her
role as Scarlet O’Hara
in Gone with the Wind; Olivier’s career had already taken off, and
around the same time was getting ready to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The two had met in 1936 and starred
together for the first time the following year.
They’d been onstage together before appearing in
That
Hamilton Woman (released in the UK as Lady
Hamilton), their second of three films together. It was a British propaganda effort meant to display to an
American audience –
at the time, living in a neutral country - the need to stop continental tyranny, with Olivier playing British naval hero Lord Horation Nelson, doing battle with a Napoleon meant to stand in for Hitler. Korda relates how the
love-affair between Nelson and Emma Hamilton was meant to “sugar-coat” the film, and remind audiences that
they were not, in fact, watching a documentary.
During his interview, Korda mostly
focuses on the amazing work his father was doing: hurriedly designing on the fly and with a small budget the spacious,
gorgeous sets for which he would be nominated for an Academy Award, the second of four times; he won once, for the previous year's The Thief of Bagdad.
His father’s
efforts are all the more remarkable, considering that the film was shot
in just five weeks. It was great fun to hear what he’d thought of the on-set goings-on he
was lucky enough as a 7-year-old to witness: a twice-in-a-lifetime experience he
recalls fondly. (He admits that being on the set of The Jungle Book the following year was even better: rubber boa constrictors! and dogs made up as tigers! lol)
Korda also claims that another factor making this a great film is that Leigh and Olivier were then at the peak
of their love for each other, and brought much of that energy and chemistry to their roles.
He didn't
delve deeply into their personal lives, but
did mention the following:
She had a passion for inappropriate other men, which in those days was described as nymphomania, and Olivier himself was at the time reputed to be having an altogether inappropriate affair with the American comedian Danny Kaye. Feelings, therefore, ran very high between them, and those feelings ran higher when Romeo and Juliet absolutely flopped on the Broadway stage [the previous year], and flopped in every possible town they took it to. They lost every penny they’d put into it. … My uncle Alex felt a call to rescue two dear and close friends from their distress.
I’d never heard that Olivier, one of the greatest, and
certainly one of the handsomest male film stars of the 20th
century,
might have enjoyed a bit of pickle every now and then, and was curious
enough
to spend a couple of hours seeing what else I could turn up on the
subject. I've chosen to include here two items I stumbled across.
“In 1950, when the Oliviers returned to
Hollywood for Vivien to film her Oscar-winning role as Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite
Marlon Brando, David Niven walked into the garden of their Hollywood mansion
and discovered Brando and Larry swimming naked in the pool. Said Niven: Larry was kissing Brando. Or maybe it was the other way around."
Olivier's son Tarquin always went
ape-shit over allegations that his
father was gay or bi-sexual, and did his best to
get all such mentions scrubbed from the official biography: Olivier, by Terry Coleman (2005).
When
that failed, he went to Olivier's widow, Dame Joan Plowright*, asking that
she withdraw her permission for the book to be called “authorized”. She refused, remarking that a man who
had been at Eton and in the Guards might be expected to be a little more
broad-minded.
Leigh and Olivier were married from 1940 until 1960. She died 7 years later, 53 years old, mostly from complications related to tuberculosis; she had also suffered for years from what was in those days called 'manic depression'. Olivier died in 1989, at the age of 82, following, unfortunately, nearly fifteen years of steadily declining health.
They may have enjoyed only brief but intense periods of happiness while together, but the joys and distraction the couple provided on stages and on the screen for millions of people are only now being slowly forgotten.
-- --
* ~ his third wife, and to whom he remained married from 1961 until his death
Leigh and Olivier were married from 1940 until 1960. She died 7 years later, 53 years old, mostly from complications related to tuberculosis; she had also suffered for years from what was in those days called 'manic depression'. Olivier died in 1989, at the age of 82, following, unfortunately, nearly fifteen years of steadily declining health.
They may have enjoyed only brief but intense periods of happiness while together, but the joys and distraction the couple provided on stages and on the screen for millions of people are only now being slowly forgotten.
-- --
* ~ his third wife, and to whom he remained married from 1961 until his death
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