Separate Tables
by Delbert Mann
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DVD details
Actor: Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, Wendy HillerDirector: Delbert Mann
Cinematographer: Charles Lang
Editor: Charles Ennis
Producer: Harold Hecht
Producer: Harry Horner
Writer: John Gay
Writer: John Michael Hayes
Writer: Terence Rattigan
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-12-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Separate Tables
DVD Review: I Just Love Rita Hayworth
Summary: 5 Stars
As I stated in the title, I just love Rita Hayworth. This is a very good movie, no matter who the leading lady would have been.DVD Review: Very enjoyable old fashioned film
Summary: 5 Stars
Another reviewer named this type of film, popular in the 50's as "group therapy." I had to laugh at that because there is a certain amount of truth in it. A varied group assembles in a site and each one, with his/her own personality defect gradually interacts with the others and a certain transformation occurs, at least in the main players. Personally I love this format--find it much more satisfying than a lot of stuff that passes for art nowadays.
The setting is charming to modern eyes---a small, apparently modest residential hotel, located three minutes away from the sea in an unremarkable English town. These people all seem to be suffering from something yet they keep up appearances grandly, and the hotel supports their various illusions. It's a perfect place for secrets to be exposed as the folks encounter one another.
The cast is first rate. David Niven is lovely as a fellow whose hearty old-style British bravura hides a desperate secret. I'm usually bored by Niven but this performance is wonderfully done...especially the last scene. Deborah Kerr is probably miscast as the frightfully repressed woman of an indeterminate age who is dominated by her scarey mother. Kerr is too robust and healthy and naturally gorgeous to get away with portraying such an unfortunate person and her attempts at shy awkwardness border on charicature. Rita Hayworth is very good as the aging but still glamourous model whose unexpected shows of kindness endear her to the audience. Burt Lancaster is perfect as the failing writer turned alcoholic whose passion for Hayworth still flares up even after a terrible marriage. Wendy Hiller plays the competent, smart woman who runs the hotel and has fallen for Lancaster. All the others are well cast and played. The only characters who didn't seem to add anything were the young couple who were on the verge of marriage. Perhaps they were there to portray "normal" against whom the others played. I thought they could have been eliminated.
This could have been terrible in the hands of lesser artists, including the director. Fortunately it was so well done that a fine, sensitive, and satisfying film emerged. The attitudes are dated so perhaps younger viewers may have a problem appreciating it. Read the other reviews and make up your own mind.
DVD Review: There are some very peculiar overtones in this film
Summary: 4 Stars
Some peculiar overtones in this film
I'll let you read about the plot in other reviews. Suffice it to say, although overtly this is a sweet film about lonely people finding each other, it has some decidedly peculiar overtones. It belongs to a type of drama popular in the mid 20th century, which I personally call "group therapy." A group of relatives or friends--in this case the inhabitants of a residence hotel--has a status quo which hides their most secret feelings, acts, and incidents in their pasts. A catalyst occurs--in this case the arrival of a stranger (to all the residents but her ex-husband). Everyone reveals their secrets (voluntarily or not), and then enters into tears, recriminations, accusations, etc. By the end of the drama there is a new status quo--one that is not guaranteed to solve any of the characters' problems, but which enables life to go on.
But the most peculiar aspect of this film is the assumption that males are so hormonally driven that women owe them sexual satisfaction. Before the drama begins, one man's wife's sexual denials have led him to assault and a stint in a mental hospital (plus she divorced him). Her "selfishness" in not wanting to spoil her figure by having children (she is a successful fashion model) is castigated, and she has to show up at the hotel and repeatedly plead to resume their relationship, and this time, she has to agree to . . . well, you know. Early in the drama, another man's lack of a partner leads him to grope strangers in a movie theatre, which in turn lands him in jail. He is rewarded with a shy, younger, more upper-class woman he's always liked, but never had the courage to approach.
And sexual satisfaction is not all the film says males are entitled to--they're entitled to children, too. Another couple consists of a medical student who is perpetually exhausted by his incessant study of anatomy either in books, or on the girlfriend who keeps dragging him into bed. But that's not enough for him; he proposes marriage a couple of times a day. The girlfriend loves him, but is not sure she wants to be tied down by marriage. At the end _she_ has to agree to marry him and furthermore, have numerous children.
Meanwhile, a very nice woman (much nicer than the ex-wife) who is engaged to the first man, is completely left out in the cold when his ex-wife shows up. She wants him, but the ex-wife is much more beautiful and desirable, so she has to be generous and gracious. The filmmakers certainly aren't worried about the urges of any _females_ landing them in a mental hospital or jail.
DVD Review: A must for any classic movie fan
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a tremendous drama, when you are in 'the mood' to watch a classic drama. Top notch cast & acting ! Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster and David Niven all stand out in this. The scenes with Hayworth and Lancaster just electrify the screen, you can feel the tension. Overall fine performances by all to be honest. This a great movie to watch on a nice quiet/lazy weekend. I very much enjoyed the story and drama in this. Watch this and see why it has the words Academy Award next to it.. Even though he had a smaller supporting role in this movie - the star of the Birds is in this - none other than the excellent Rod Taylor - here is a chance to see what he did before he achieved the top spot in the Birds..DVD Review: A superb character study, a Flawless David Niven
Summary: 5 Stars
What a gem of a movie this is. Lancaster is great (as always) as a tortured, 'I love her and hate her, can't live without her' ex-husband of Rita Hayworth, who in my opinion, gives one of the movie's least effective performances. Wendy Hiller is completely heart breaking as someone who is so afraid of loving (and with good cause it turns out) and yet so full of love for Burt Lancaster. Deborah Kerr, IMO, over-acts here, but has her finest scene in the final dining room scene when she finally seperates herself from Mommy-dearest (who is also afraid of losing the one thing she has left). But the movie belongs to David Niven. OMG. The final scene where he comes into the dining room and tries to blend into the woodwork, make himself small and tight, drops his fork, tries to hide behind the menu...have you ever seen a performance that gave you as much pain to watch? He was absolutely superb. And then the resolution as, one by one, he is welcomed back into 'the fold' by his fellow hotel boarders. The relief that is in his face that reflects what kindness can do. Now THAT is acting. Love this movie...bought it on VHS and am going to buy the DVD. The performances in this movie give support to the saying "They don't make 'em like this anymore!"
Description of Separate Tables
Terence Rattigan's pair of one-act plays are deftly woven together into this intelligent, handsome drama, a kind of somber Grand Hotel of lonely and repressed lives at a British seaside hotel in the dreary off-season. David Niven and Wendy Hiller earned well-deserved Oscars for their subdued turns, as a blustery old warhorse hiding a guilty secret and the efficient hotel proprietress, respectively. Burt Lancaster is the alcoholic American whose secret affair with Hiller is complicated when his former wife (Rita Hayworth) breezes in and reopens old emotional wounds, and Deborah Kerr is a mousy woman whose secret love for Niven is shattered by scandal. Director Daniel Mann (Marty) remains true to the good manners and quiet desperation that keeps these sad souls isolated at separate tables. He gracefully floats between the two dramas and patiently allows his repressed characters to open up and reveal their true feelings in their own quiet fashion. --Sean AxmakerGeneral DVDs
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