Leslie Howard, Rosamund John, David Niven

[stuart.uk]

Spoiler Alert

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For years I've been going on about Leslie Howard's outstanding propaganda movies of WW2 and what a great actress Rosamund John is. I had hoped to find something from The Way To The Stars, where Rosamund was truly brilliant, but The First Of The Few is a classic in it's own right, plus the fact David Niven took time of from his active war duties to also appear. The begining of this clip is a moving scene between Howard and John

[JackFavell]

My God! This is the movie we know as Spitfire! I have been looking for this film for years.... I saw it when I was young and then never was able to find it again, probably because Spitfire isn't the true name of the movie!

I am a huge Leslie Howard fan, and this movie is one of the reasons why. It was marvelous, the story of R.J. Mitchell, the man who developed new fighter planes that helped save Great Britain during the war. Thanks Stuart so very much!

Rosamund John was very, very good. But I love Howard in these practical but dreamy roles. I love the way that clip ended, with Howard looking with double meaning up into the sky....

[stuart.uk]

Jack

The whole film is on You Tube. I picked this one clip because Rosamund John featured strongly. The other film I mentioned of hers The Way To The Stars was known in the U.S as Johnny In The Clouds

I also prefer Howard's Pimpernel Smith, his modern day Indianna Jones/Scarlett Pimpernel character to his more famous The Scarlett Pimpernel

[JackFavell]

Pimpernel Smith is a really good film too! It's way more down to earth than The Scarlet Pimpernel. These films are just super and show a little bit different side of Howard, very serious, very moving. I believe he did narrations for a few films at that time as well.

49th Parallel is another one I love, but I don't know how anyone could get past the beginning with Laurence Olivier doing that horrible french canadian accent..... however, it also has the marvelous Anton Walbrook.

I wish that people had seen some of these later films and Pygmalion rather than just rolling their eyes when they think of Ashley. Howard was a really fine fine actor, but no one knows it.

[stuart.uk]

He directed and narrated, making a brief appearence with his back to camera in The Gentle Sex with Roz John Joan Greenwood and Lili Palmer as girls serving in the ATS, driving lorries, ambulances and firing big guns at German planes in WW2

I think Howards war movies are better than his more famous Hollywood efforts, not that they were all that bad. Though Ashley in GWTW should have been played by a younger actor. What about Errol Flynn

[JackFavell]

I like him very much as Ashley, but I think I am one of the few. I find him almost perfect in temperament for the part. I think he did not want the part, but had a nice time pal -ing around with Vivien Leigh after shooting started.

Errol Flynn could have done it, I think, but it would have been a stretch for people to believe it. At that time people didn't appreciate his acting much. Perhaps he is too forceful? I couldn't see him sitting back staring at the sky dreaming of what once was, not at that time in his career anyway. Maybe later on. I think he was in the running for Rhett, so for the producers to see him then as Ashley would have been difficult.

In the book, the character is very much a dreamer who cannot come to grips with the new south. I am trying very hard to think of anyone who could have done any better than Howard, and I can't come up with anyone. The only other actors I can think of were not of the stature of Howard - more like second stringers, some of whom were very good, but not in that league. The other choices would not have been a good contrast with Gable - I am thinking Brent or Robert Taylor. Howard seems to be just right out of the group.

I usually hate to try to think of these things... I rarely do the what ifs, because I am not good at coming up with comparisons like that.

[sandykaypax]

Jackie, I am also one of the few who likes Leslie Howard as Ashley in GWTW. When I was a girl, I couldn't understand WHAT Scarlett saw in him. But, rereading the book as an adult (I first read the book when I was 15 years old), and having some real romances of my own, changed my view.

Howard may have been a tad too old for the role, but I really can't think of any other GOOD actor in Hollywood at the time that could've played Ashley as well as Howard did.

Sandy K

[JackFavell]

Hey, SandyK! it's nice to see you out and about. How are you?

I think Howard is very good if a little mushy around the edges, but maybe that is something in the role that we don't like. There is something uncomfortable about Ashley stringing Scarlett along, and I think Howard points it a little. After watching his other performances, I don't think Howard was anything like Ashley - there is something very strong minded about him that I like very much, especially in the war films. I think maybe HE didn't like Ashley, and that is why he comes off a bit weaker than in the book.

[Ollie]

Leslie Howards suffered from my first GWTW viewing, and I had great difficulty finding tolerance for him in a few other films I'd seen. But it was his SCARLET PIMPERNEL that gave him a new valuation in my mind and, after that, I've somehow flipped my negatives.

I'm disappointed to see that 1942's SPITFIRE/FIRST OF THE FEW is apparently out of print for the North American DVD. Whew... glad I discovered it when I did, therefore.

[stuart.uk]

One of the reasons I thought of Errol Flynn as Ashley was because he played Soames in That Forsyte Woman in the late 40s, so I thought he might make a good Ashley, besides he would have been able to recreated his magical romantic screen partnership with Olivia De Havilland as well as make Scarlett fall head over heels in love with him.

Other young actors at the time, who could have done Ashley justice

Laurence Olivier, who in his late career played Big Daddy in a tv version of Cat On A Hot Tinned Roof

I even wonder about Ralph Richardson, who might not have been as conventienally handsome as others, but could do noblity as he did in The Four Feathers and South Riding

David Niven

Henry Fonda

Robert Taylor

[JackFavell]

I totally understood where you were coming from with Errol Flynn, Stuart... and all your other picks are great.

I think of all of them, Laurence Olivier could have done the best job as Ashley, but my heart will still always belong to Leslie....

[JackFavell]

Ollie,

I'm glad you've seen the light, thanks to The Scarlet Pimpernel, a fine performance in which Howard's lively brain and talent for sarcasm is showcased. I think this is getting at what I like most of all about him. When he is at his best in roles that suited him, like Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, for instance, his "Miltonic mind" is dazzling to behold. His slightly aloof intellectuals, who briefly show moments of intense tenderness are very appealing to me. He is particularly good at switching from one key to another - comedy to drama, or serious back to light. And he has a great sense of humor.

In TSP, the scenes where Percy must hide his true feelings from his wife by playing the buffoon are lovely, because the foppery is so outrageous one minute, but then Howard has sublime moments where the mask is dropped and his deadly serious nature comes through. In Pygmalion he finds moments of heartfelt feeling where others might only portray a singleminded priggish snob. His line, "I can't turn your soul on, Eliza." is spoken in another register, intimating great feeling, but he quickly shuts it off just as we get a glimpse of a real human being.

[charliechaplinfan]

I got to watch The First of the Few a couple of days ago, I hadn't realised we had a thread about it. I've never watched this movie before, my copy was a poor copy but it's a stirring patriotic film made by a patriotic English man. I loved the flying sequences and the symbolism. I've got to appreciate Leslie Howard more over the years. I've always liked David Niven.