Separate Tables (1958)

Separate Tables
Directed by Delbert Mann
Written by Terence Rattigan and John Gay based on Rattigan’s play
1958/USA
Hill-Hecht-Lancaster Productions/Clifton Productions/Norlan Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Ann Shankland: I didn’t mean any harm.

John Malcolm: That’s when you do the most damage.[/box]

This ensemble-piece melodrama contains some excellent performances.  Unfortunately, some of the amateur psychology in the screenplay hasn’t aged very well.

No-nonsense Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) runs a hotel near the seaside.  The guests are largely long-term residents and one of the calling cards of the place is that guests are seated at separate tables.  Therefore, the hotel has attracted a lot of lonely people.  Pat is unofficially engaged to one of them – John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), an alcoholic American writer with a troubled past.

The other guests include Major Angus Pollock (David Niven), a pompous veteran of seemingly every campaign in WWII, and shy spinster Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr) and her domineering mother (Gladys Cooper).

American socialite Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) drops in seeking a room for an unspecified period.  Really she is there to check up on ex-husband John Malcolm.  Ann is the cause of John’s drinking as well as a stint in prison.  Much heated conversation ensues.  At the same time, Major Pollock is caught “nudging” a woman in a darkened theater.  When this and several lies are revealed by the press, Sybil’s mother seeks to have him ostracized.  Sybil, who had been his special friend, is forced to take sides.

The acting honors were well deserved for this.  I especially admire Hiller’s performance which is beautifully subtle.  I’m not as fond of Kerr, whom I think is miscast, but then I’m not fond of her characterization by the writers either.  If you substitute homosexuality for “nudging” the plot would make more sense but then the Kerr-Nevin relationship wouldn’t work.  The Lancaster-Hayworth conflict seems too overblown to me as well.

David Niven won a Best Actor Oscar and Wendy Hiller won for Best Supporting Actress. Separate Tables was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actress (Kerr); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer