Separate Tables (1958)

Though Deborah Kerr and David Niven are often singled out for their performances, it's really the sensitive, restrained, and vulnerable performance by Rita Hayworth and her relationship with the intense Burt Lancaster that will make you want to come back to this film again and again.

Kerr is worlds away from her elegant performance in "An Affair to Remember." Her Sybil is dominated by her mother (excellently played by Gladys Cooper), repressed, plain, and rather odd. David Niven plays Major Pollock, a war-story windbag with some disturbing secrets. Niven won the best actor Oscar for his performance. However, on the second viewing of this film, his and Kerr's acting seemed showy and became a little irritating. I'm not so sure they stand the test of time.

The less shrill moments with Wendy Hiller (also excellent), Lancaster, and the lovely, involving Hayworth were a welcome respite. Hayworth, more than anyone else, will break your heart in this film. She makes you care about what happens with her character, Ann. Perhaps their roles weren't as tied to an era as Niven's and Kerr's, but Hiller's, Lancaster's, and Hayworth's acting styles certainly seem more natural and real.

Cathleen Nesbitt also turns in a warm and lovely performance as Lady Matheson.

I definitely recommend this movie!

Fmovies: I have just seen this for the third time, and it gets better every time. What anyone under the age of 30 would make of it, I cannot imagine. But for people old enough to remember having met or known people like the characters in this film (which is also a classic play by Terence Rattigan, revived from time to time on stage), this is a harrowing, searing examination of the interior recesses of fossilised people in a formal society of manners such as England was before the 1960s. The play/film is set in a seaside hotel at Bournemouth in England in the 1950s. It is peopled by lonely, stiff upper lip people who sit at separate tables in the communal dining room. The performances by numerous famous actors are absolutely staggering. David Niven gives certainly his finest performance in any film, well deserving his Oscar. Deborah Kerr leaves our jaws agape at her wholly convincing portrayal of a cringeing, crushed daughter of a tyrant mother who despite having entered middle age still says simperingly: 'Yes Mummy, No Mummy' and is afraid of her own shadow. The film is actually dominated by two older women: on the one hand, Gladys Cooper tyrannizes over the entire cast of characters with her Olympian certainties, pernicious control freakery, destructive and sadistic cruelty, all masked by 'proper manners', a 'concern for morality', and a view of herself as representative of a superior class of being, not to mention the upper class of society. She is one of those elegantly dressed older women who used to dominate all around them, gave themselves the airs of duchesses, or at least of the duchesses they imagined (since they had probably never met one), and who carried snobbery to its greatest heights. Cooper absolutely dominates the screen in every shot, and her arched brow or wrinkled nose of disapproval is enough to terrify a pontiff. And then there is the calm, emotionally ravaged, but practical and efficient hotelier, played by Wendy Hiller. She dominates her own scenes in turn, with her unique charm, and she well deserved her Oscar too. Poor Wendy has been in love with Burt Lancaster for years. But then his ex-wife Rita Hayworth turns up, whose cold glamour casts an arctic spell, and the intensity of her needs and her egotism threaten to turn the proceedings to ice, which will shatter into shards and leave everyone chilled at the heart. It is all done to perfection. Delbert Mann, who was such a brilliant director, here outdoes himself. The stagey 'set' of the hotel suggests a large, rambling stage set through which the camera relentlessly prowls. There is no attempt made to show 'the world outside', or to achieve realism beyond the walls of the Hotel Beauregard where the multiple dramas unfold. We all somehow understand that this is a play, but there is nothing uncinematic about it, quite the reverse. The underlying theme of all the stories in this film can be summed up in one word: self-control. All of the characters' feelings are suppressed, all of their upper lips are as stiff as boards, all of their hearts are breaking, everything is appearance, but beneath the appearance there are the unheard screams, the cries, the agonies, the concealed feelings, and the sobs that are never heard because never uttered. The days when people could control themselves (albeit so often too much so, as we see here) are long gone. Nowadays it all hangs out, every last bit of it. Nothing is concealed any longer. And yet here we see a tableau of self-control presented to our eyes to remind us what everything was lik

This film came highly recommended to me by my parents, so I was anxious to watch it. Again, I realized that my impression of Burt Lancaster is completely different from what he actually is as an actor. His portrayal of an alcoholic man who gets a visit from his ex-wife (Hayworth) at the hotel he resides is again different from the boisterous, oafish guy that I always believed him to be when I was younger. Also at the hotel are a varied group of characters – including an oppressive woman who lords over her timid spinster daughter (Kerr) and a retired Army officer with some secrets, (Niven) who are all taken care of by the distant, yet sincere proprietress, Pat Cooper (the amazing Wendy Hiller). The film encompasses all of their separate plot lines, and interweaves them gradually until the climatic ending. There was no action in this film, just wonderful, straight melodrama and some great writing and acting. A year later, Lancaster and Hecht, the producers behind this film, went on to produce `Sweet Smell of Success', which is infinitely more searing and dark, but it was interesting to see the precursor to that film. I recommend this film for anyone who appreciates solid classic melodramas.

--Shelly

Separate Tables fmovies. I visited London in 1993, and saw a west end revival of Terrance Rattigan's "Separate Tables" that starred Peter Bowles. It was very odd watching Bowles, whom I have seen playing so many upper crust comic types as in "The Irish R.M." on television, here playing two serious parts: a recovering alcoholic who meets his ex-wife at a hotel he is staying at, and a bluff, good natured military man who disgraces himself - and is facing ostracism as a result - in the same hotel. But these were separate plays, and each well done. Rattigan was a master (possibly the last one) of the "well made play" that Shaw condemned as artificial and fake. The "well made play" Bernard Shaw talked about was the type championed by the French dramatists Planche and Victorien Sardou. Structurally they were perfect, with the concentration on plot mechanism so strong as to diminish everything else. Shaw felt the play should say something. He failed to admit that some of his own plays (among his early ones) like "Caesar And Cleopatra" and "Arms And The Man" were "well made plays", with his own wit added. He also failed to notice that in the hands of a good dramatist (like Rattigan) a well made play could be very strong: "The Winslow Boy", "The Browning Version", "Separate Tables" - the credits prove the point.

As has been pointed out in another of these reviews Rattigan rewrote the plays as one play. This was not too difficult, as the only character in the two who was the same was the hotel manager (Wendy Hiller). Her part was built up a little (in the original she is a close friend of the Burt Lancaster character - here they have a relationship). Frequently people recall David Niven's dramatic triumph and Oscar in "Separate Tables" as the disgraced military man, but Hiller won her best supporting Oscar here (she did not win it for her lead performances in "Pygmalion", "Major Barbara", or "I Know Where I'm Going"). She deserved it, as a woman who sadly sees her chance for happiness swept away, but pulls herself together because she is a grown-up with responsibilities.

Lancaster and Rita Hayworth were formerly married (he a rising Labor Party politician, she a wealthy woman) only to find the tensions of his political career and their tempestuous relationship led to an act of violence that ended the marriage. But Hayworth finds she can't live without Lancaster, and he is willing to consider it again - as their play continues. Will they do it or not?

Niven is a bluff, hail-fellow-well-met type, who claims he was a Major in the army. He happens to be very close to Deborah Kerr, the daughter of autocratic Gladys Cooper. Kerr is quite brow-beaten, but Niven encourages her to try to think for herself. Then it turns out he has committed a sin - he broke the law by performing a dirty act, and was caught. Cooper, who hates anyone who stands up against her, learns of it, and uses it to cause Kerr to break with Niven, and to then try to get the hotel to force him out. Will she succeed or not?

Niven played his role with a degree of regret and humiliation rarely seen by his fans in three decades of film comedies. I have mentioned that he had a dark side, but this was one of the few times it was given full strength. It was worth waiting for, as he was superb.

So too were Hayworth, Kerr, Cooper, and the supporting cast. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton were good as the young married coup

David Niven, who was never given the credit he deserved for his enormous talent, gives the performance of his career in "Separate Tables." Instead of playing the perpetual nice guy, he is a definite shady character. He deceives everyone into believing that he's a reputable person, especially shy Deborah Kerr. But soon, it is revealed that he's not the person he appears to be, with possible disastrous outcomes...

Featuring a fantastic all-star cast, including Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, and Rod Taylor, "Separate Tables" seems to be a forgotten masterpiece. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress, and won two...including one for the magnificent David Niven. I highly recommend this movie!

I enjoyed this movie immensely. I went back and watched parts of it over because it was done so well.

The actors show the greatness and degradation of human nature under the duress of great personal obstacles and non-ideal circumstances.

Burt Lancaster is both bold and vulnerable, directly honest and compassionately understanding.

One person exhibits unsurpassed understanding with unselfish love. To me, this is a love story on many levels; manipulative love, selfish, lonely love, the love of people's opinion, love battling fear and finally... well, you need to watch it and see.