Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Senteur
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Mathilde the Guild
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Khun Kru Mark
'The Card' was just what war-worn Britain needed in the early fifties. This innocent, cheeky and humorous talkie would have had the cheap seats in fits!Alec Guinness plays Edward Henry 'Denry' Machin, a young ambitious chancer who is just about likable enough to get away with the stunts he pulls on his way up the ladder of social and business success. He pounces on each and every opportunity and risks everything he has... and each venture seems to work out very well. Edward is a very 'English' working class hero and is the sum of many parts. There's some Charlie Chaplin, some Arthur Askey and even some George Cole in the mix. At first, he seems to be rather effete and almost effeminate... he's definitely a mother's boy, though his stubborn mother wouldn't know it!The story is buoyed by a mass of top class British talent. Already famous Petula Clark plays Nellie but she's always in the shadow of the magnificent Glynis Johns. Her blistering on screen feline sexuality is just pure magic.Edward Chapman plays a jealous adversary. Chapman was an extraordinarily busy actor throughout his long career but is probably best remembered for playing opposite Norman Wisdom as Mr Grimsdale.Joan Hickson shows up as a dissatisfied and grouchy property owner. She went on to find her greatest professional success towards the end of her life playing Miss Marple in the best of any Agatha Christie series ever made... in my humble opinion!Towards the end, there's even a beautiful cameo by Wilfrid Hyde-White. And there are a lot more names for 'spotters' to enjoy, too.The story is mostly good-natured silliness with no real plot to think about and there are some great outdoor shots of post-war England for good measure.At this time of writing (2017), there's a good copy of this available to watch on YouTube... so do yourself a favour... unwrap that choc-ice and get over there!
robert-temple-1
Alec Guinness creates a wonderful lead character in this excellent satirical British comedy, which was so highly regarded when it came out that it was nominated for an Oscar. The film is based on a novel by Arnold Bennett, with a screenplay by Eric Ambler. It is set in one of Bennett's 'five towns', the potteries in the north of England. Guinness starts out as the son of a poor washerwoman, a complete 'nobody', but struggles ingeniously to hoist himself by his bootstraps, and succeeds over and over again. Valerie Hobson plays the Countess of Chell (no relation to the oil company?) who is the local grandee in a huge mansion, to whom all and sundry bow and curtsy. Hobson was a perfect choice for the role, and plays it with appropriate tongue in cheek. She finds Guinness most amusing, and indeed he is. Guinness too retains a subdued, almost subliminal, elfin quality throughout. The film is made with huge dollops of good humour, and Joey the donkey is actually played by Joey the donkey, who gets lots of laughs. This film is a wonderful cheering example of British comic entertainment at its best. Glynis Johns is simply marvellous as a scheming woman on the make, and Petula Clark (who began acting at the age of 14 and by now was a seasoned pro, despite still being a bright young thing) is absolutely charming. Everyone is good, everything is good, the film is good, and Ronnie Neame's direction is superb. What more could one want? Oh, and by the way, the title refers to Guinness being called 'a card', which is a now abandoned term meaning an amusing fellow who is getting on in life in ways which might be slightly questionable but are good for a laugh. No card games are played and all resemblances to cards living or dead is purely coincidental.
secondtake
The Card (1952)This is an Alec Guinness movie top to bottom, which is probably misleading to people who don't know his best films like "The Man in the White Suit" the year before or "Kind Hearts and Coronets" or "The Lavender Hill Mob." This one is not a comic classic like those, but it is in fact in the same lineage (never mind that American detective master Eric Ambler wrote the screenplay).For those familiar with British comic dramas like these, you'll know what to expect, and "The Card" is really filled with warmth, wry humor, absurdist twists, and lots of changes of course. If you don't know of this Guinness (et al) background you'll maybe recognize this as a precursor to the humor of Peter Sellers and (by extension in his films) Woody Allen (of all people). But another side to this makeshift analysis is the American screwball comedy of the 1930s and early 40s. In a way, that's where this has its roots. A unlikely love is bound to happen between the leading man and leading woman, but things continually get in the way. Until the end.It's not a screwball however. It never gets quite that zany, or in fact quite that "good," if you happen to like the great screwballs. It's not that "The Card" is restrained, exactly, but it has an almost serious tone at moments, and the whole backdrop (of a man moving up through the ranks of a working class culture) is something of a normal course for heroes in regular dramas.The name of the movie on its release is the best, because a card is someone who has some tricks up his sleeve, or who is wily at other people's expense (though light heartedly, for sure). The American release changed the name (for no good reason, I think) to "The Promotor," which implies either an impresario (perhaps a bit tongue in cheek) or someone who is playing the system for his own gain. And that's not really what Guinness's character is quite all about.One of the odd things about Guinness is his particular style, which you might say is all his own. And which makes the movie its own. He's comic with always this softening of the edges. He smiles and is likable but never quite with genuine warmth. You might even suspect of him of being too much an actor, so that every emotion is a trained one. That works better in some of his other movies, where the director plays against that type. Here he is made to be a bit more of a standard leading man, and it falters just a hair.You might also find the plot is not especially compelling. You won't really care what happens, partly because you already half know, and partly because the succession of events it sufficient enough, not for the end result but for the moments, each one. Still, there's nothing quite like this in American film, certainly not by 1952 (that I know of), so if you like this you might really be transported. Very well made, oddly sincere, and if not belly-laugh stuff, still warm and happy.
MARIO GAUCI
Alec Guinness' reputation as a serious actor tends to overshadow the subtle but deftly comic early work he was involved in, even when the films themselves (especially his handful of Ealing classics) are highly-regarded. This was another fine (and reasonably popular) vehicle for him in which he plays a go-getter(!) who uses his wits – and the helping hand lent him by Fate – to rise the ranks in British society from a washer-woman's son to, ultimately, Mayor of his town. In this respect, the film reminded me of two similar efforts i.e. NOTHING BUT THE BEST (1964) and THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER (1970) – which I owned but had not yet checked out (and which I then promptly opted to include in my ongoing Christmas schedule); of course, thematically, it is not unlike Ealing's own KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949; in which Guinness had memorably played eight murder victims)...but the approach here is altogether more genteel and nostalgic (even if there are a few undeniable belly-laughs along the way), thus lacking the pointed satirical barbs which distinguished the earlier (and later) films. Anyway, the star delivers an entirely disarming performance and the film – augmented by its charming period setting – proves a most delightful concoction. He is abetted besides by three splendid leading ladies in Glynis Johns (surprisingly playing haughty), Valerie Hobson (obviously aristocratic, her feathers apparently not even unruffled by a pratfall!) and Petula Clark (not yet the chart-topping singer and, tackling the role of a commoner, is naturally Guinness' eventual choice of partner). Foremost among the supporting cast, then, is Edward Chapman – later a stooge in many a Norman Wisdom comedy – as Guinness' disgruntled former employer, but several other familiar faces crop up throughout (Peter Copley, Michael Hordern, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Frank Pettingell, etc). For the record, this was the first of four appearances by the star in films directed by Neame (apart from two the latter had produced for David Lean); of these, the only one I have yet to watch is another comedy, THE HORSE'S MOUTH (1958), which I might as well get to now rather than later...
