Submitted by
Neal Lofthouse
Miles Malleson
Picturegoer week ending October 1st, 1949.
Miles of Characters
"Room for one more inside" - the line he repeated in "Dead of Night" - was
how Americans greeted versatile Miles Malleson. They were right - he always
finds time for a new character part.
By Catherine De La Roche
Here's something a bit different - an appreciation of a really choice character
actor whose expert bits and pieces must have intrigued you in many British
films.
The name? Miles Malleson, of course. The films? Well, the two latest,
I think are 'Kind Hearts and Coronets', in which he played a screwball character
- a public hangman with a taste for bad poetry - and the pleasant 'Train
of Events', in which he brings the house down as a ripe old railway timekeeper
whose passion in life is looking after his chickens.
What a warm, lovable character he makes of it. How disarmingly he talks
about the birds and their welfare, until you'd swear that this chinless
old chap had spent half his life in a hen coop.
And how many times have you chuckled at some doddering and benign old clergyman
popping about in the background of some film - and then noticed that it
was another of Mr. Malleson's jovial old gentlemen?
What a trouper he is !
Yet, if you ask him, he will admit that of all his achievements as author
and actor, an exploit while an undergraduate at Cambridge is surely the
most extraordinary.
An aged M.P., due to speak at a debating society dinner, failed to turn
up. Just in time, the society's president (now a judge, according to rumour
!) remembered Malleson's talent as an actor, and Malleson disguised with
the aid of a great white beard, improvised a typical speech against women's
suffrage - the reverse of his own views, incidently.
Footnote : the speech got a page in the newspapers, and, though the M.P.'s
agent rashly threatened action, the M.P. himself congratulated Miles on
"a good job by a member of the college."
"I would die with horror now," says Malleson, "something of the spirit of
adventure goes out of one !"
Be that as it may, on the stage and screen he has since portrayed every
imaginable character with increasing virtuosity.
A Sportsman Too
Calm and friendly in manner, he's quite versatile in his interests. He's
a scholar, a wit, a born storyteller and an idealist with the courage of
his convictions, for which he has made many a sacrifice. He's a sportsman,
too, and it still means a lot to him that he was once college captain of
cricket.
Though he took his degree intending to become a schoolmaster, Malleson went
straight into the Liverpool Rep., and, encouraged by good notices, on to
the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. But it was his West End apprenticeship
under Dennis Eadie at the Royalty just before the First World War that taught
him most.
"Working with him," says Malleson, "I learnt that the actor's craft is founded
on real interest in people. There are two things to remember in creating
a character : how a man looks and how he feels."
"But, to start with, the actor only has his own feelings to go on. The next
step is to incorporate them into the character. So he must constantly observe
both the physical idiosyncrasies of various people and their reactions in
different situations."
The list of roles in which Malleson has put this idea into practice fills
two columns of "Who's Who in the Theatre."
In movies, his first experience was a non-appearance in a silent film. He
was playing a man who had to be thrown out of the back of a car, and played
with such zeal that he fell right out of shot. In those days production
methods were such that nobody noticed !
Work and Fun
Among the numerous parts in which he did appear on the screen was that of
King Charles's secretary in Malleson's own screenplay of 'Nell Gwyn' - his
work in front of the camera began alternating with work behind it quite
early in his career.
He had become a playwright soon after going on the stage. All his plays
deal with vital issues.
"I believe," he says, "that drama is really concerned with contemporary
life and social criticism. The poet John Donne expressed what I mean perfectly
when he wrote about feeling himself 'involved with the rest of mankind.'"
As a screen writer, Malleson began with a series of historical scripts,
bringing authenticity and realism to a category of pictures which, in those
days, was notorious for inaccuracy.
He wrote 'Peg of Old Drury', and collaborated on the script of 'Victoria
the Great'.
Then he scripted a number of subjects for Alexander Korda, including "The
Thief of Bagdad', for which I as a member of the scenario department, did
some of the research. What a job, and what fun !
After this Miles turned to the contemporary scene, writing 'They Flew Alone',
collaborating on the screenplay of 'The First of the Few', and Paul Rotha's
full-length documentaries, 'World of Plenty' and 'Land of Promise'. In the
last picture, you may remember, he also gave a delightfully humourous performance
as the tiresome gent who was agin everything new.
Malleson's activities are by no means confined to stage and screen acting
and writing, He directs plays - all his own and many others. He writes and
acts for the radio and television, participating in some of the most outstanding
broadcasts, such as the Third Programme series on Chaucer.
"Sometimes it seems," he says "that drama is such a passing business. A
performance is given, a picture screened, then, probably, forgotten. Only
occasionally do you hear that something is remembered, and then you feel
you may have added a little to the knowledge about the stuff of life."
Something To Remember
There was something remembered during his tour of America a couple of years
ago. After playing Polonius to Gielgud's Hamlet in Kentucky, he was greeted
by people with the quotation : "Room for one more inside !" - the line he
repeated again and again in 'Dead of Night'. It was the same everywhere
during the tour.
However busy Malleson may be in the theatre or scripting, he always finds
time somehow for acting in movies.
You'll see him shortly in a key part as the French gendarme in 'The golden
Salamander' and as an old drunk in Hitchcock's 'Stage Fright'.
And I'm glad to say that, as always, there's plenty more in the offing.
