Other Titles • Separate Tables • Getrennt von Tisch und Bett (1959)
Synopses for Separate Tables (1958)
1.
Terence Rattigan's pair of one-act plays are deftly woven together into this intelligent, handsome drama, a kind of somber Grand Hotel of lonely and repressed lives at a British seaside hotel in the dreary off-season. David Niven and Wendy Hiller earned well-deserved Oscars for their subdued turns, as a blustery old warhorse hiding a guilty secret and the efficient hotel proprietress, respectively. Burt Lancaster is the alcoholic American whose secret affair with Hiller is complicated when his former wife (Rita Hayworth) breezes in and reopens old emotional wounds, and Deborah Kerr is a mousy woman whose secret love for Niven is shattered by scandal. Director Daniel Mann (Marty) remains true to the good manners and quiet desperation that keeps these sad souls isolated at separate tables. He gracefully floats between the two dramas and patiently allows his repressed characters to open up and reveal their true feelings in their own quiet fashion. --Sean Axmaker
2.
This film version of Terence Rattigan's 1955 West End hit features a stellar ensemble cast. The film follows the interplay of a group of lonely characters who are staying at a slightly shabby seaside hotel in Bournemouth. The term "separate tables" refers to the practice of seating single guests at their own tables in the dining room, and serves as a metaphor for the characters' fear of intimacy. Major Pollack (David Niven) is a retired officer who likes to wax eloquent about fanciful acts of heroism in WWII North Africa, and Sybil Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr) is a repressed spinster boxed in by an oppressive mother (Gladys Cooper). John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), a cynical, hard-drinking, occasional writer, is surprised by the sudden arrival of his ex-wife Ann (Rita Hayworth). Though Ann's legendary beauty is dimmed by age, Ann and John both reach tentatively for some human contact. SEPARATE TABLES, a work that now seems relatively tame, was controversial in its day for attempting to deal with sexual problems, however obliquely. The all-star cast is excellent, but it is the genius of Wendy Hiller, in a small part, that steals the show.
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