Separate Tables

Separate Tables, nominated for Best Picture of 1958, was based on two one-act plays by Terrence Rattigan, which were set in the same hotel on the English sea coast. Rattigan, along with John Gay, combined the one-acts so that the main characters of each interacted with each other, and spun a fine ensemble drama that was powered by some high-wattage performances.

Though set in England, the film was shot entirely on an MGM soundstage in Hollywood. It was directed by Delbert Mann, who had won acclaim for Marty in 1955. As with that film, this was produced by the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster partnership, the Lancaster part of that being Burt Lancaster, who was one of the stars of Separate Tables. He plays an American writer fond of Irish whiskey. He is one of several guests at the hotel. Also staying there are a Major Pollit, played by David Niven, who is sort of a Colonel Blimp type prevaricator, and Deborah Kerr as the mousy spinster bossed around by her bluenose mother (Gladys Cooper). Kerr and Niven have a nice friendship going. One night a glamorous fashion model, played by Rita Hayworth, shows up. It turns out she is Lancaster's ex-wife.

Watching over all this is Wendy Hiller as the hotel manager, who also happens to be in love with Lancaster. He has asked her to marry him, but she hardly believes it, especially when Hayworth shows up. The other plot thread concerns Niven's major. He's gotten himself arrested for fondling a woman in a movie theater, and when a newspaper article reveals this, along with his actual record during the war, Cooper demands that he be thrown out of the hotel.

Separate Tables is told in a minor key. The characters in the hotel, especially when they are seated at the title tables, seem almost like ghosts, lost in their own loneliness. A young frisky couple, played by Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton, seem out of place with their vitality. Niven, a desperately sad man who has created an alternative persona, full of typical "jolly good show" vocal mannerisms, is particularly effective, and won an Oscar for his efforts. Hiller, also very good as the officious manager who masks her own heartbreak, also won an Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress.

The direction and screenplay are top-notch and seem effortless, but there is at least one misstep--a title song, syrupily sung by Vic Damone. Listening to Mann's commentary, one learns that he was deadset against it, and it was put into the film without his knowing. When he saw the film in New York he immediately went to his agent's office and demanded to be let out of his contract with Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, and never worked for them again.