The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

Directed by Anthony Asquith. Starring Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Dorothy Tutin, Joan Greenwood, Edith Evans, Margaret Rutherford, Miles Malleson.

Adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s upper-crust-crumbler (a “Trivial Comedy for Serious People”) has a stuffy, static aesthetic, but the same quivering rigidity in action and diction makes for splendid comic theater. Aristocratic gentlemen suitors Redgrave and Denison both assume the moniker of “Ernest,” although no such man exists, resulting in escalating confusions when both men propose marriage to young ladies who are known to their respective cohorts, not to mention a discovery or two. Nimble, eloquent wit aplenty, with no shortage of chortles, ably performed and presented (even when it fails to shrink away from the box corners of its stagy trappings). Evans walks away with the whole show through her peerless take on the redoubtable Lady Bracknell. Tutin’s first film role.

74/100