Dorothy McGuire rose to fame playing a child bride in Claudia, so she’s perfect Hollywood casting for Nora. Ditto Basil Rathbone as her doting elder husband Torvald. This was a solid adaptation, like all these Theatre Guild of the Airs, really. It’s trimmed to about 50 minutes (they pad out the running time with a song at the end) but all the meat is there, as Nora frets about money and status, and Torvald treats her like an idiot. Adultery and the middle classes, with a solid story (Nora is blackmailed); the best thing about it is the end when Nora tells her husband to go jump. Rathbone's acting style is a little too 30s-Hollywood-cinema-or-20s-West-End; it's effective just old fashioned. McGuire is solid rather than sensational. I really wish the male lead had a different name to Torvald; it just sounds so silly.
No comments:
Post a Comment