''Of Human Bondage'' is a 1964 British
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Ken Hughes
Ken or KEN may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer.
* ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film.
* ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine.
* Ken Masters, a main character in t ...
and starring
Kim Novak
Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak (born February 13, 1933) is an American retired film and television actress and painter.
Novak began her career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, ...
and
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey (born Zvi Mosheh Skikne; 1 October 192825 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director. He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and emigrated to South Africa at an early age, before later settling in th ...
in the roles played by
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
and
Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 18931 June 1943) was an English actor, director and producer.Obituary ''Variety'', 9 June 1943. He wrote many stories and articles for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and '' Vanity Fair'' and was one ...
three decades earlier in the original film version. The
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
release, the third screen adaptation of
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
's
1915 novel, was written by
Bryan Forbes
Bryan Forbes CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013 an ...
from the novel by
Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
.
Plot
After two unsuccessful years pursuing an art career in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
clubfoot
Clubfoot is a birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. In approximately 50% of cases, clubfoot aff ...
ed Philip Carey decides to study medicine. He meets and falls in love with Mildred Rogers, a low-class waitress who takes advantage of his feelings for her.
When she leaves him to marry another man, Philip falls in love with Nora Nesbitt, a writer who encourages him to complete his studies. Mildred returns, pregnant and abandoned by her husband, and Philip takes her in and cares for her, ending his relationship with Nora.
While staying with Philip, Mildred has an affair with his best friend Griffiths, and when Philip confronts her, she tells Philip she's repulsed by him and walks out.
After earning his degree, Philip becomes a
junior doctor
In the United Kingdom, junior doctors are qualified medical practitioners working whilst engaged in postgraduate training. The period of being a junior doctor starts when they qualify as a medical practitioner following graduation with a Bachelor ...
at a London hospital. He learns Mildred is working as a prostitute and seeks her out at the
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
where she's living with her ailing child.
He takes the two under his wing, but once again Mildred leaves him. When he finally finds her in a clinic for the indigent, he discovers her child has died and Mildred, in the advanced stages of
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
, dies in her spurned lover's arms.
Cast
*
Kim Novak
Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak (born February 13, 1933) is an American retired film and television actress and painter.
Novak began her career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, ...
as Mildred Rogers
*
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey (born Zvi Mosheh Skikne; 1 October 192825 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director. He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and emigrated to South Africa at an early age, before later settling in th ...
as Philip Carey
*
Robert Morley
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, of ...
as Dr. Jacobs
*
Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna (; 24 May 1922 – 16 November 1986) was an Irish stage and screen actress.
Background
She was born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast in the newly-created Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family. ...
as Nora Nesbitt
*
Roger Livesey
Roger Livesey (25 June 1906 – 4 February 1976) was a British stage and film actor. He is most often remembered for the three Powell & Pressburger films in which he starred: ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'', ''I Know Where I'm Going!' ...
as Thorpe Athelny
*
Jack Hedley
Jack Snowdon Hawkins (28 October 1929 – 11 December 2021), better known as Jack Hedley, was an English film, voice, radio, stage, character, theater, screen and television actor best known for his performances on television. His birth name n ...
as Griffiths
*
Nanette Newman
Nanette Newman (born 29 May 1934) is an English actress and author. She appeared in nine films directed by her husband Bryan Forbes, including ''Séance on a Wet Afternoon'' (1964), ''The Whisperers'' (1967), '' Deadfall'' (1968), ''The Stepfor ...
as Sally Athelny
*
Ronald Lacey
Ronald William Lacey (28 September 1935 – 15 May 1991) was an English actor. He made numerous television and film appearances over a 30-year period. His roles included Harris in ''Porridge'' (1977), Frankie in the Bud Spencer comedy '' Ch ...
as Matty Mathews
Production
Development
The
first screen adaptation of Maugham's novel, made thirty years prior, starred
Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 18931 June 1943) was an English actor, director and producer.Obituary ''Variety'', 9 June 1943. He wrote many stories and articles for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and '' Vanity Fair'' and was one ...
and
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
.
Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid (November 10, 1908 – March 29, 1992) was an Austrian-British-American actor, director, producer, and writer. He is best remembered for two film roles; Victor Laszlo in ''Casablanca'' and Jerry Durrance in ''Now, Voyager'', bo ...
and
Eleanor Parker
Eleanor Jean Parker (June 26, 1922 – December 9, 2013) was an American actress. She was nominated for three Academy Awards for her roles in the films '' Caged'' (1950), ''Detective Story'' (1951), and ''Interrupted Melody'' (1955), the first ...
co-starred in
the 1946 remake for Warner Bros.
In December 1961 it was announced that Laurence Harvey would play the male lead in a third screen version of ''Of Human Bondage''. It was to be made in conjunction with
Seven Arts Films with
James Woolf
Sir John Woolf (15 March 1913, London – 28 June 1999, London) and his brother James Woolf (2 March 1920, London – 30 May 1966, Beverly Hills, California) were British film producers. John and James founded the production companies Romulus Fil ...
to produce the following year;
Peter Glenville
Peter Glenville (born Peter Patrick Brabazon Browne; 28 October 19133 June 1996) was an English film and stage actor and director.
Biography
Born in Hampstead, London, into a theatrical family, Glenville was the son of Shaun Glenville (born Jo ...
was being pursued to direct. In February 1962 Orin Jennings was reportedly writing the script. The following month Harvey said he would make the movie after ''
Running Man''. Harvey went to visit Somerset Maugham in France to get the author's advice on how to play the role.
In July 1962 Ray Stark, head of Seven Arts, said he had turned down an offer from a leading female star to appear in the movie on the grounds she was too expensive; he said she would have led to them requiring a further $3 million to break even.
In November Seven Arts announced the director would be
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway (March 13, 1898 – February 11, 1985) was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring Randolph Scott and John Wayne. He directed Gary Cooper in seven films.
Backgro ...
who had tried to make the film four years previously with
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
and
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift (; October 17, 1920 – July 23, 1966) was an American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, he was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men", according to ''The New York Times''.
He is best remembered ...
as the leads. Hathaway said "I firmly believe that she
onroewould still be alive today if she had played ''Of Human Bondage''. It would have given her the roles she longed for and which I know she could have done."
In December 1962 it was announced Kim Novak would play the female lead.
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
was offered a support role that would have taken two days to shoot. She turned it down.
Seven Arts wanted to shoot the move at Ardmore Studios in Ireland. English trade unions insisted their members be brought from England to work on the film. There was considerable unrest involving the union prior to filming. This led to legal proceedings after the film had been made but did not stop production.
Shooting
Henry Hathaway arrived in Dublin on 9 February 1963 and filming began later that month. Hathaway quit the film in late March after conflict with Kim Novak. Hathaway said that the time. "I never raised my voice at Kim; she never raised her voice to me. It's just like marriage - sometimes the partners are incompatible."
[DIRECTOR LEAVES BRAY FILM AFTER "INCOMPATIBILITY " WITH KIM NOVAK Irish Times Reporter. The Irish Times 30 Mar 1963: 6.] However, Tony Booth, who had a small role in the film, said Hathaway routinely disparaged Novak's performance and acting ability, particularly her cockney accent. Novak said Hathaway never complained to her about her accent, but said the director "tried to make me into a sexy symbol rather than the complicated person Mildred was. It backfired."
Screenwriter Bryan Forbes then briefly tackled the job of directing, while Seven Arts looked for a replacement. They considered
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...
and
Richard Quine
Richard Quine (November 12, 1920June 10, 1989) was an American director, actor, and singer.
He began acting as a child in radio, vaudeville, and stage productions before being signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in his early twenties. When his acting ...
before deciding on Ken Hughes, who had made ''Trials of Oscar Wilde'' with Seven Arts.
Ken Hughes arrived in early April. Kim Novak failed to show up on set one morning, going on a 48 hour shopping trip to London, leading to rumours she would be replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. Novak told the press she was unhappy on the film and that while she was willing to honour her contract, she would prefer to leave the film. She said that Hughes was rewriting the script and she was afraid she would have to reshoot scenes she had already done. "Things aren't easy on this film," she said. "There's been a bit of confusion and it's very wearying. Am I happy about things now? No not really. I'd sooner see someone else take over if the whole thing is going to be done again."
"I've never worked on a film about which there's been so many rumours," said Hughes. "Most of them are nonsense. Everything is hunky-dory." Novak returned to the film and the shoot was completed by June. Booth worked on the Hughes-directed portion and says Hughes did not get along with Laurence Harvey. Novak said Hughes "was really a case. I tried to talk about the character with him, but he just wasn't interested. He walked around the set constantly pounding a set of bongo drums - you would ask him a question and he would slap the drums."
Producer James Woolf, a long time supporter of Harvey's as well as his occasional lover, took an overdose of barituates during the making of the film, but survived.
The film was denied a Production Code Seal due to some brief nudity.
Bryan Forbes later sued Seven Arts claiming they owed him £5,000 from a £10,000 acting fee.
Critical reception
A. H. Weiler of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called the film a "surface, stoic old-fashioned tale" and added, "The pitiful meagerness of heartfelt dialogue, direction and acting, so essential in transporting Maugham's three-dimensional figures from book to screen, is noticeable almost from the start of this largely unemotional drama. These are not classically tortured people who emerge whole and alive on film but are, instead, artificially quaint
Edwardians
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
who are simply play acting and speaking lines that seem alien to them and the viewer ... Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak ... seem painfully miscast. Mr. Harvey's portrayal is, at best, a succession of basically vacuous, woebegone attitudes. He appears to be more distracted than heartsick or emotionally undone. One wonders what he ever saw, aside from an occasional physical view, in Miss Novak's conception of the ill-fated, blonde
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...
whose
East End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
accent and actions are often a laughable
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of the real articles ... Most of the time, this pallid drama constitutes bondage for a discerning observer."
''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' said, "As portrayed by actress Novak, Mildred giggles a lot and speaks cockney like a girl who learned the sound of
Bow bells
The Church of St Mary-le-Bow is a Church of England parish church in the City of London. Located on Cheapside, one of the city's oldest and most important thoroughfares, the church was founded in 1080 by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Rebuil ...
from somewhere in
South Chicago
South Chicago, formerly known as Ainsworth, is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois.
This chevron-shaped community is one of Chicago's 16 lakefront neighborhoods near the southern rim of Lake Michigan 10 miles south of downtown. ...
."
''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'' says, "As the doomed pair, Novak and Harvey are passable, but little more than that. Harvey looks too old for the role, and fails to give his character much life, while Novak, although making a valiant attempt, never conveys enough passion to make her role believable. Further denying any dramatic potential is Forbes' uninspired adaptation of Maugham's novel. Rather than probe the psychological make-up of the characters, the script consistently focuses on superficial motivations with all the emotional intensity of a high-school drama-society production."
''TV Guide'' review
/ref>
''Filmink'' claimed "The resulting film is interesting, and contains one of Harvey’s best performances, but isn’t that good. Novak’s performance doesn’t help and, more seriously, Hughes doesn’t get – or didn’t have time to capture – the essential DNA of the story."
The film was condemned by the National Legion of Decency
The National Legion of Decency, also known as the Catholic Legion of Decency, was a Catholic group founded in 1934 by Archbishop of Cincinnati, John T. McNicholas, as an organization dedicated to identifying objectionable content in motion pictu ...
for its sexual content and masochism.
Awards and honours
* 1965: BAFTA Film Award for Best British Costume Design, Black and White (Beatrice Dawson
Beatrice Dawson (26 January 1908 – 16 April 1976) was a British costume designer who was nominated for an Academy Award, as well as three BAFTA nominations. She had 69 film credits from 1945 to 1976.
Dawson also worked on an episode of ...
)
References
Notes
*
External links
*
*
*
''Of Human Bondage'' at the Internet Movie Database
Of Human Bondage
at BFI
{{Authority control
1964 films
1964 drama films
British black-and-white films
British drama films
Films based on British novels
Films directed by Ken Hughes
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Films based on works by W. Somerset Maugham
Films scored by Ron Goodwin
Films set in London
1960s English-language films
1960s British films