WENDY HILLER

     She wasn't beautiful or particularly glamorous. Her career spanned 50 years yet she  made only 17 movies. But she won an Oscar, was nominated for another, and was George Bernard Shaw's favorite actress. Dame Wendy Hiller lived to be 91, and left a legacy of outstanding performances in very good films.

     I cannot say that Pygmalion (1938) is better than the musical version, My Fair Lady. But I can tell you that it is very good indeed, and Wendy Hiller is simply marvelous as the whining cockney Eliza Doolittle. These two films would make a great double feature!

     Another Bernard Shaw entry, Major Barbara (1941) stars Ms. Hiller as the rich girl who joins the Salvation Army and Rex Harrison as her suitor. This is an excellent screenplay by Shaw himself and others. It's also Deborah Kerr's first film!

     One of the unsung wonders of British filmdom is the superlative I Know Where I'm Going (1945). Ms. Hiller is a city-bred girl all set to marry a very rich man who owns an island. When the weather keeps preventing her from sailing across the strait to her wedding, she meets and falls for Roger Livesey's Scottish gentleman.  Beautiful black and white photography and a gentle, affecting love story make this one a real keeper.

     Separate Tables (1958) is an under-appreciated story of quietly desperate lives at a seaside resort. Wendy Hiller won her Oscar here for her portrayal of the rather timid mistress of Burt Lancaster. David Niven, Rita Hayworth and Deborah Kerr complete a fine cast in a film that amplifies and exceeds Terrence Rattigan's play. 

     A Man For All Seasons (1966) is Robert Bolt's outstanding drama about St. Thomas Moore's principle-based defiance of the mercurial Henry VIII. There are few better screenplays than this one; the dialog crackles and prods. Paul Scofield is Moore, Orson Welles is Cardinal Woolsey, and Robert Shaw, Leo McKern, John Hurt and Susannah York are on board also. The movie won six Oscars. Wendy Hiller was nominated for an Oscar as Moore's practical, but steadfast, wife. She lost to Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. No argument here.

     Other good Wendy Hiller outings are in David Copperfield (1970) as Mrs. Micawber, and in The Elephant Man (1980).

     All of the movies herein are available on DVD and for streaming. There's nothing harmful in any of them, but under 10s are not mature enough for the subject matter.