Choose Wisely

Review: Hobson's Choice with John Mills, Brenda de Banzie, Charles Laughton

What makes a "classic" movie classic? For me it goes beyond the black-and-white film, and the stars, directors and screenwriters of the 40s and 50s. It has more to do with a philosophy, the sense that binary values exist. Call them good and evil, or right and wrong, but classic movies in my library tell the story of what happens when people must choose.

My favorite example is named for that choice: Hobson's Choice. Superficially, the titular choice belongs to the Charles Laughton character, a boot-seller in Old Salford (near Manchester).

The very common, Mancunian-accented widower Henry Hobson has three daughters, a modestly prosperous boot-shop, and a drinking problem, made worse by living over the shop—and across the street from the local pub. So the choice might be his, to drink or be sober.

Each of his daughters are also Hobsons, though, at least until they marry. His two younger girls have selected prosperous—and teetoal—beaus, and shifted to as posh a fashion as they can afford for courting. Despite their obvious steps to escape the influence and lifestyle of their father, however, the thick Manchester accent reveals the thin veneer of their change. Their choices have not challenged the limitations of their upbringing, so much as painted over them.

Then there's Maggie Hobson (de Banzie). Henry's oldest daughter knows exactly what she wants: the best bootmaker in Manchester, Willie Mossop (Mills)—and in that sense Mossop is also Henry Hobson's "choice". Hobson pays him pennies, and gives him a place to stay "down cellar" in the workroom under the shop. When a local dame finds Mossop's boots superior, Maggie siezes her chance and gives Mossop a choice: he can marry her and make a success in their own shop. Or he can stay and make boots for pennies for his sot of a boss for the rest of his life.

This movie might have been grim, filled with defeated people barely clinging to their dreams in a gritty industrial town. Instead, it is filled with lovely images of romance growing well-fertilized from the common soil of effort and discipline. I can watch it often, and never fail to be uplifted by its message: Success in marriage and business—and life—require the same commitment. 

It's your choice.