An all-star cast defines Five Finger Exercise, an intense family drama, which is replete of internal conflicts and external tensions.
Grade: B (*** out of *****)
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The husband and wife team, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, have effectively adapted to the big screen Peter Shaffer’s stage play of the same name.
Jack Hawkins plays Stanley Harrington, a businessman incapable of expressing his emotions or compromising with others. Rosalind Russell is cast as his pretentious wife, Louise, who perceives herself as an intellectual, though her intelligence is more of an affectation than a reality.
In his first film after winning the Best Actor Oscar for Judgment at Nuremberg, Maximilian Schell plays a teacher from Germany, hired as a tutor for the couple’s two teenage children, the effeminate Philip (Richard Beymer) and the high-strung Pamela (Annette Gorman).
Walter tries to ingratiate himself with the family, but to no avail. When he tries to get to know Louise better, she deludes herself that he’s fallen in love with her. Thus, she is deeply hurt, when he confesses that he instead sees her as a surrogate mother.
Turning point occurs when Walter is driven to the brink of suicide, which forces the family members to reconsider their attitudes toward him and toward each other.
This is one of the last films made by the accomplished actress Rosalind Russell, who gives an overly dominant, but unconvincing, performance under the direction of Daniel Mann, who has otherwise worked well with women. With his guidance, both Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952) and Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo, 1955) had won the Best Actress Oscar.
The film was based on Five Finger Exercise, a play that premiered in London in July 1958, and played for 337 performances on Broadway from December 1958 until Octoberb 1960.
Alec Guinness was originally cast in the role of Stanley Harrington but left the project due to other commitments. Trevor Howard was involved with another stage play, so the role finally went to Jack Hawkins.
The shift of location from a British to an American middle-class milieu was not compelling. Wrse ye, Rosalind Russell, as the selfish and snobbish wife-mother, is working overtime, resulting in an arch and artifiical picture, which lacks heart or soul.
Cast
Rosalind Russell as Louise Harrington
Jack Hawkins as Stanley Harrington
Richard Beymer as Philip Harrington
Annette Gorman as Pamela Harrington
Maximilian Schell as Walter
Lana Wood as Mary
Terry Huntingdon as Helen
Credits
Produced by Frederick Brisson (Risalind Russell’s husband)
Directed by Daniel Mann
Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, based on Peter Shaffer play
Cinematography Harry Stradling Sr.
Edited by William A. Lyon
Music by Jerome Moross
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date: April 19, 1962
Running time: 109 minutes
