User Reviews

When I go to the theater, which as I age is much more than even the busiest year of my movie going experience (meaning actually going to a movie theater to sit down and watch it with a crowd rather than at home on my own), I try to be very understanding of the actors on stage, knowing that this isn't on tape, but LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! In the past two years, the amount of Shakespeare on Broadway and in the New York area alone has been tremendous, and in getting my fill of it, I can see how tough putting a successful Shakespeare play together can be. The Old Vic gave us repertory productions of "Richard III" and "Twelfth Night" which were outstanding and produced exactly how they were done during his lifetime. A production of "MacBeth" at Lincoln Center made me go home and take an instant shower (on Halloween night, 2013!) because of its Satanic references and a huge pentagram in the middle of the stage. "King Lear" with Frank Langella at BAM gave me another insight into how Shakespeare is done correctly. Seeing a very Off-Off Broadway production of "Hamlet" gave an indication of how so much can be done with less frills, and then a variation of the same story as seen through the eyes of Queen Gertrude (simply called "Gertrude") gave another unique perspective. Modernizing "Romeo and Juliet" with a motorcycle riding Romeo didn't work, and taking "As You Like It" into the woods at the Delacorte left me with a mixed reaction as well.

Therefore, with this film about a London production of "Othello" (which I have yet to see in any version), my sympathy was there with actor Sebastian Shaw who faces the wrath of critic A.E. Matthews, a pretentious snob of a reviewer who seemed to take glee in panning his performance. His secretary (Miriam Hopkins) is prepared to turn the review in when Shaw's "Desdemona" and off stage wife (Gertrude Lawrence) shows up to beg Hopkins to not pan him, knowing that being his big London break, it could break his spirit to get a bad review. Certainly, the next day, his performance is outstanding, but Hopkins gets the sack for altering Matthews' review. When he re-visits "Othello", Matthews re-considers his feelings towards Shaw and Hopkins is re-hired. But a night out with Shaw and Lawrence leads to Hopkins becoming a little too close to the married actor in spite of being engaged to fellow reporter Rex Harrison.

A decade before Ronald Colman donned Othello's make-up and costumes to commit murder in "A Double Life", another Othello got almost close, and this is a melodrama with comedy intertwined that may seem like it suffers from mood swings but ultimately works on a non pretentious artistic level. Hopkins has a drunken scene where she totally inhabits Tallulah Bankhead's persona, and indeed, as Ms. Bankhead once inhabited the London stage where she became a favorite of the "gallery girls", this salutes those audience members who save up their pennies to buy the cheap seats. It's pretty much a fact that if the gallery audiences hated your show, it was doomed to fail, no matter what the critics thought. As Hopkins goes to re-visit "Othello" several times in the gallery, the viewpoint of this part of the audience is widely expressed, and in an almost horrific finale, Hopkins reacts to the onstage activities.

This is a rare opportunity to see the fabulous Gertrude Lawrence on film, having only made a few appearances on screen, and mainly known to American audiences through her stage work (particularly the original Mrs. Anna in "The King and I" and the movie "Star!" where Julie Andrews portrayed her) and legendary personality. Young Rex Harrison has little to do, but shows much of the bombastic personality he would later as the dead sea captain in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", the manic conductor in "Unfaithfully Yours" and especially Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady". Hopkins seems too American to be believable as a British girl, but Stark and Matthews are excellent as the rising actor and the critic who initially dismissed him. This is the type of story that should be mandatory for those going into the theater and into the journalistic field of criticism. Even as I write my own reviews, it gives me new insight into the world of stage actors and how difficult it must be to remain fresh and alive when pretty much the whole world is looking on in judgment.

The plot for "Men Are Not Gods" is interesting and sets the stage for a drama about love, fidelity, and adultery. The situation that starts all of this is different, but not very likely. A secretary changes a theater critic's review of a play at the pleading of the leading actor's wife.

After she is sacked from her newspaper job, the secretary goes to see the play on its second night. She meets the woman again, who introduces her to her husband. She starts to fall for the actor. The actor loves his wife but is weak (as many of we men might be in similar circumstances), and is drawn to the woman.

In time, the woman's attraction begins to become an obsession. She finally comes to her senses and breaks off the relationship. The actor and his wife are not split up, but are together at the end.

At least one other reviewer noted a big problem with the screenplay. The story begins light and on the humorous side. But it changes abruptly into a serious drama. Even in the hands of two very fine actresses, the change is hard to accept in so short a time.

Miriam Hopkins and Gertrude Lawrence save the film and are the only real reasons to see it. They give top performances as Ann Williams and Barbara Halford, respectively. Halford is the stage name of the wife of the up and coming actor Edmond Davey. He is played by Sebastian Shaw who gives a forgettable performance.

It's astonishing that Miriam Hopkins' career survived this clunker. Double for the careers of Gertrude Lawrence and, in a small role, Rex Harrison. What starts out as a "madcap" role as a ditzy secretary swings into heavy dramatic territory as Miriam falls for a stage Othello, played in blackface by.the beautiful and inert Sebastian Shaw, who is also married to his Desdemona, Gertrude Lawrence. If you have any reason to see this movie, fast forward to Lawrence's scenes, where she exudes star power and shows why she was an unstoppable leading lady of the British stage for decades. Too bad the role forces her to forgive and reconcile with the husband who just tried to strangle her. Rex Harrison appears to be auditioning for an entirely different film (he would graduate to leading man parts a few years later).

This is a film with a fundamentally sound premise. But unfortunately, it has too many flaws to be considered a classic. Some of the individual performances are great...especially the ones rendered by the two leading ladies, Miriam Hopkins and Gertrude Lawrence.

Miss Hopkins appears on a loan out from Sam Goldwyn, traveling across the pond to work on what would be her only British motion picture. No explanation is given why a gal with a Georgia accent is living in London and employed as a secretary at a newspaper office.

While socializing with a colleague (Rex Harrison), it is her job to type up the latest reviews of the plays that are premiering in the city. These reviews are written by her boss, a stuffy drama critic (A. E. Matthews) who delights in tearing actors to shreds.

Hopkins ends up rewriting Matthews' latest diatribe, a scathing tirade about a new production of Shakespeare's Othello. This is because she's been approached by the actress wife (Lawrence) of the lead actor (Sebastian Shaw) to intervene, and help prevent the play from becoming a flop.

Hopkins goes to see the play herself and soon becomes smitten with Shaw. She gets drawn into an unusual triangle with the actor and his wife. It's kind of a lopsided farce that has a novel angle-- behind the scenes of the play, life is the opposite of what occurs in the play. On stage Othello is jealous of Desdemona, but off stage the wife who plays Desdemona, is the jealous one.

While Hopkins deals with this situation and its increasing intensity, she occasionally bumps into Harrison. He's sweet on her, but she doesn't seem to have much time for him.

He looks on while her infatuation with the Shakespearean actor turns into a full-blown affair. Mr. Harrison makes the most of his screen time, but his character is not at all a part of the story's resolution. This means he doesn't win the girl in the end.

Hopkins has above-the-title billing and she gets the most important moments. She goes from naive and lovestruck to adulteress, then finally to flat out hysterical. She must have realized the unevenness of the script and wisely chooses to turn her character into a caricature rather than a flesh and blood person. We can at least be entertained by her despite the illogical aspects of the writing and direction.

The writing would have been better if the guy playing Othello had been foreshadowed as having a hint of instability. It is unrealistic that he suddenly goes mad in the last act while performing before a packed theater. Ronald Colman provides a much better interpretation of this in A DOUBLE LIFE (1947).

What does work for me is the fairly muted idea that an outside person, Hopkins' character, can have an effect on what happens between performers who exist in an alternate reality. She becomes a force in their specific melodrama, exceeding the limitations of the proscenium arch.