Robert Donat, great unfullfilled talent

[stuart.uk]

It seems strange to sat that Robert Donat was an unfullfilled talent considering the amount classic movies he made, but i doubt if i made 20 movies with severe asthma greatly affecting what he could or couldn't do. if not for Donat we might never have heard of Errol Flynn, as the English agreed to play, but turned down in the end the role of Captain Blood.

Robert Donat made a big impression in Britain's first international success in The Private Lives Of Henry The 8th supporting Charles Laughton. this led to his one and only Hollywood film The Count Of Monte Cristo. this was supposed to be a small budget film, but Donat demanded better and it was made as an epic.

In the UK he made Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps playing Richard Hanney, featuring the great bedroom scene when Madeline Carroll takes of her wet stockings while hadcuffed to Hanney, to which he responds 'Can i be of any assistance.'

he played a crusading Doctor, who loses his way briefly in The Citadel with Rosalind Russell. having seen the 80s tv series with Ben Cross, i feel the film was better acted, but the series told a better story, staying loyal to the book

A Knight Without Armour i think is a film that's better than it's given credit for with Donat as a British agent trying to help Russian Princess Marlene Dietrich escape the new Lenin order.

Donat's most popular role was Chip's in Goodbye Mr.Chip's with Greer Garson, playing a schoolmaster of a public school from 1870 to 1933

one of his best later successes came with The Winslow Boy with Margaret Leighton and Cedric Hardwycke, where he defended a Naval cadet accussed to stealing a small amount of money

In 1950 he headed an all star cast as film inventor William Friese Green in The Magic Box.

by now ill health prevented him for working and he was allowed to make two more films. in a film reflecting his own imortality he played a dying vicar given just a yr to live in Lease Of Life with Kay Walsh, but the news also gives him a lease of life in his new job as a country parson. it's a rarely seen film, but Donat gives a great performance nonetheless

his last film was The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness playing a Manderin, who's last words to Ingrid Bergman and the cinema audience was 'We shan't see each other again i think!'

[mrsl]

Stuart:

Although Mr. Chips is definitely my favorite Robert Donat, a close second is Perfect Strangers with Deborah Kerr and Glynnis Johns. What a true to life that movie was. Two people married and both go off to war and go through total personality changes. She goes from a drab mouse to a beautiful swan with the help of her friend Glynnis. He starts out as a pathetic, and sickly, constantly feverish mope of a man and ends up as an Errol Flynn clone. There were just the right amount of laughs and sad spots and the climax in the bar was a hoot.

Anne