THE CHALK GARDEN: Blu-ray (Universal, 1964) Kino Lorber

 The 1960’s were a big decade for governesses. Bette Davis played a demented caregiver in The Nanny (1965), Julie Andrews gave us the umbrella-flying fantastic in Mary Poppins (1964) before descending on the plush green hills of Austria as a sugary-sweet-treat in The Sound of Music (1965), and Deborah Kerr perverted, yet queerly sexualized the role of the novice tutor in The Innocents (1961). So, to rediscover Kerr as something of a more restrained, though just as mentally-tortured creature, Miss Madrigal, harboring a deep, dark secret in director, Ronald Neame’s The Chalk Garden (1964) is not so much a stretch, as an extension in the trajectory of the actress’ career. If only for Kerr’s classy central performance, the picture would already have a lot going for it. But The Chalk Garden also affords us the luxury to relish in another magnificently subtle offering by the late – and very great – John Mills (as the outspoken and empathetic man servant, Maitland), sharing the screen with his real-life daughter, the superbly charming Haley (of Disney fame), herein cast against her usual wide-eyed type as the wickedly precocious and rather beastly, Laurel. Apart from the exemplary cast, which also includes the sublime Edith Evans, as the controlling and marginally vindictive grand dame, Mrs. St. Maugham, ever-dependable Felix Aylmer, as compassionate Judge McWhirrey and, Scottish sweetheart, Elizabeth Sellars, as Maugham’s estranged daughter, Olivia, The Chalk Garden is as blessed to have John Michael Hayes as its screenwriter. Much, in fact, has been done to distill Enid Bagnold’s somewhat peculiar British stagecraft into a more manageable, straight-forward, and emotionally satisfying tale of two women – one, ripened by scandal and disillusionment, given a second chance at happiness, the other, teetering on the cusp of a sort of fractured womanhood yet to be tested by the real cruelties in life.

Bagnold wrote The Chalk Garden in 1955, the play turned down for its ‘muddled’ symbolism in its native Britain, but embraced in America by aspiring producer, Irene Selznick who remained “haunted by its gossamer flashes of poetry and beauty.” Nevertheless, the tale, as woven by Bagnold, decided lacked focus and trajectory.  Selznick traveled to England where she and the author continued to ‘bang out’ the details, discuss casting and plans for the premiere. Bagnold’s desire to have Edith Evans as Mrs. St. Maugham for the play’s American debut was quashed by Selznick who preferred the more intercontinentally renowned Gladys Cooper. However, once The Chalk Garden eventually reached London, Bagnold had her way with Evans in the part. For Miss Madrigal, Selznick aimed high in her desire to cast Katharine Hepburn. Alas, although a personal friend of Selznick’s, Hepburn did not see herself in the part and politely declined. So, Selznick and Bagnold next offered it to Wendy Hiller, who also demurred, as she preferred to remain in England. Hence, the role was filled by Siobhán McKenna – a valiant third choice. Selznick also ambitiously pursued George Cukor to direct. And although Cukor saw the production through its early hiccups during rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts, he was to hand over the full-time responsibilities of its theatrical run to Albert Marre once the show moved to Broadway. Cecil Beaton was hired to create the sets and costumes. Although Cukor and Selznick found him utterly intolerable, Beaton’s efforts were as highly praised by the critics. As a play, The Chalk Garden was successful, running 182 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.

As a play, the story concerns Mrs. St. Maugham who resides in a country house in Sussex, built upon a plateau of lime and chalk. The soil, alas, is hardly conducive to Maugham’s aspirations for a plush garden. Worse, the aged Maugham is managing her disturbed teenage grandchild, Laurel, who enjoys setting fire to things. Enter Miss Madrigal, an expert gardener but novice governess. Despite her lack of references, and a mysterious past – kept hidden at the outset of her employ – gradually an ‘understanding’ begins to form between Laurel and she; the latter, seeing far too much of herself in Laurel’s troubled youth.  Observing it all from a safe distance is the valet, Maitland, newly paroled from a five-year prison sentence. Maugham is estranged from her daughter, Olivia, Laurel's mother, who has since remarried. Indeed, the grand old lady refuses to relinquish Laurel to her mother’s care. However, when an old friend of Maugham’s, Judge McWhirrey, arrives for luncheon, Miss Madrigal’s past – tried long ago for the murder of her stepsister – comes tumbling forth. The Broadway production of The Chalk Garden was well-received by the critics who thought it resplendently witty and shrewd about the struggles and follies of youth, revisited in mid-life. Arguably, however, it was the play’s more literate and sophisticated passages that needed massaging in translation from stage to screen. And if something of the play’s brittle cleverness was lost when The Chalk Garden made its way to the movies, its compensation was indeed its superb re-casting. Not that director, Ronald Neame agreed.

Indeed, he had wanted Ingrid Bergman for the role of the governess, and was decidedly unhappy with Haley Mills as his co-star, believing the young, and wildly popular star had skewed too far into the type of fresh-faced inquisitives she played for Uncle Walt in Pollyanna (1960) and The Parent Trap (1961). There is even a tree-climbing scene, oddly reminiscent of Pollyanna in the movie version of The Chalk Garden in which, not unlike its predecessor, Mills’ enterprising young lass gets her comeuppances for being too inquisitive for her own good.  These shortcomings (if indeed, they are) aside, the film adaptation of The Chalk Garden remains curiously off balance, its moments of high comedy, odorous with what Bagnold references as ‘the shape and shadows of life’ somehow subverted by the movie’s lack of abstruse commentary on the character’s true identity and her ever-lasting positive influence on Laurel’s process of maturing beyond the adolescent niggler who only thinks she knows it all, into a young, if sad-eyed lady of distinct qualities. The movie’s compensation is, Madrigal’s past and all its flaws are reconciled before the final fade-out with St. Maugham’s eccentric passion to bring renewed life to her otherwise lifeless existence. For the movie, director, Ronald Neame had hoped to ensconce his grand dame in a decaying country estate, not unlike Great Expectation’s Miss Havisham, in all her cobwebbed and corroding glory on the moors. Instead, Neame was met with resistance by producer, Ross Hunter – well known for his plush escapism., Neame resisted, but Hunter insisted, and Maugham’s home was not only neat as a pin, but rather palatial besides. Hence, the main setting of the piece is an idealize retreat from the outside world, surrounded by tall banks of trees, lovely bricked enclosures, a quaint pergola adjacent the main house, and a beautiful winding drive leading up to its front doors.

The Chalk Garden begins with the arrival of two prospective employees, Miss Madrigal, and Anna (Lally Bowers) vying for the role of governess at the home of Miss Maugham. Anna is the nervous sort, quite taken by the stately abode, while Madrigal is decidedly unimpressed by it all and rather short with the home’s valet, Maitland. Briefly, both women are introduced to Laurel – the spoiled and saucy teenager to whom their care will be entrusted. Laurel delights in plying each with probing questions about their past, and also, hinting at the breadth of her own ‘terrible’ nature, certain to shock. While Anna is easily unnerved and flees from the home, even before Mrs. St. Maugham has the opportunity to interview her, Madrigal casually insists she is up to the challenge of managing a wayward brat, despite never having been a governess before, and thus, lacking in the essential references to convince her employer of as much. However, in escorting Madrigal through the garden, Maugham learns she has a green thumb – a quality much desired, as her garden absolutely refuses to grow any flowers thus far. And so, Maugham hires Madrigal, leaving Laurel to plot all manner of investigation into her past.

Maitland advises against it. He even buys Madrigal a deadbolt for her bedroom door, suggesting her privacy will be compromised without it. Madrigal is, at first, disinterested by Laurel’s probing. However, when she discovers the girl has momentarily hidden her artist’s case of oil paints and brushes, Madrigal decides to have the lock installed, thus resulting in Laurel having to go to extreme measures to restore it in its rightful place. Scaling a tree just outside Madrigal’s bedroom window, Laurel returns the case, but becomes entangled in the tree’s branches, resulting in a scene to alert the entire household of her deception. The next day, Madrigal has the branches pruned to deny a repeat engagement of the previous night’s high-spirted adventure. Having taken notice of the unusual lettering inside the artist’s case, Laurel inadvertently precipitates a revelation, even as Madrigal reports to have no whiff of a tainted past about her. Instead, as Judge McWhirrey arrives for luncheon, Laurel takes particular notice of Madrigal’s unease. Through her probing of McWhirrey’s latest case – a murder trial – it is revealed that fifteen-years earlier, Madrigal was convicted by McWhirrey for murdering her own step-sister and sentenced by him to death. Instead, her sentence was commuted. Newly released from prison, she came to St. Maugham’s seeking her own quiet place away from the world, only to discover redemption made possible by her easing the social angst of a child, not unlike herself in temperament at that impressionable age.

Distraught over the old wounds she inadvertently reopened, Laurel accepts Madrigal’s advice to reconcile with her estranged mother, at last able to recognize her grandmother, while well-intended, has nevertheless allowed her own toxic nature to proliferate unabated. Maitland is exceedingly proud of Madrigal. Indeed, throughout her stay, his admiration for her has steadily evolved, and, so it is hinted at the end of our story, may indeed prosper as a deeper affection with time and patience. Maugham, who at first vehemently chastised Madrigal for her interference, now also begins to see she has been something of a foolish old dowager, so afraid to remain alone in her great house, she nearly destroyed the bond between Laurel and Olivia.  At story’s end, Olivia collects her sadder but wiser daughter as Maugham pensively observes their reunion from the front window, still unable to bring herself to put to rights with her own daughter. As Olivia drives off with Laurel in a shiny convertible, a suddenly ebullient Laurel waves goodbye to Madrigal.  Afterward, Maugham emerges from the house, seemingly, to dismiss Madrigal once and for all. In fact, she has come to ask for Madrigal’s forgiveness – also, to inquire whether she might remain and help tend her garden. Madrigal reasons they shall endeavor together to make wonderful things grow. As the two women depart for the yard, Maitland looks on with the deepest admiration for both women.

The Chalk Garden is a rather devastating, but flawed picture about a mother’s love, a demoralizing secret and the strength of character to be discovered by these various characters on their own terms in times of adversity.  I disagree with Neame’s assessment Haley Mills is miscast herein. True enough, her early scenes play with a baleful reticence to act her age, wailing into a burning fire, or insidiously poking at Madrigal’s good nature in an attempt to draw out the specters from her past. But Haley illustrates remarkable maturity once the thin veneer of Laurel’s charade is allowed to slip just a little from its self-anointed and high-mounted authority. Deborah Kerr and John Mills are exquisitely cast. The elder Mills is a particular revelation, emoting much sincerity and a hint of Maitland’s own sordid past, parceled off in tender shrugs or the occasional stern-eyed glance. Kerr evokes Madrigal’s heavily guarded sense of tragedy, made more meaningful by its sudden – yet natural – expulsion at the end, as Madrigal takes her employer under the arm for a stroll through the garden they will now share with a more meaningful understanding of life.  John Michael Hayes, one of cinema’s irrefutably gifted storytellers – whether adapting or creating original content for the screen, excels at decluttering Bagnold’s somewhat heavily weighted stagecraft. What works on the stage, rarely is as effective on celluloid. And thus, Hayes gives us only glimmers of Bagnold's circuitous perspectives, concentrating on Laurel’s mischievous nature instead, made supremely decorous in radiant hues of Technicolor. Thanks to cinematographer, Arthur Ibbetson, The Chalk Garden possesses a lush and stylized glamor. This may not be in keeping with Bagnold’s original work, but it certainly befits the uber-sauce and soap opera of a picture produced by Ross Hunter. In the end, The Chalk Garden is compelling because it allows a handful of seasoned thespians their opportunity to explore some wonderfully complex dramatic situations. A great film, it’s not. A very competently made and fine one with much to recommend it? Most certainly!

The Chalk Garden arrives on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber’s alliance with Universal Home Video and for once, Uni has done its deep catalog proud. Perhaps, I am being a tad too harsh on Uni here, but only because I know the studio can do exceptional work when effort is made, and also, because I own more than a handful of their Kino releases from various vintages that do not live up, either to their own high standards, nor Blu-ray’s technological advantages. Mercifully, The Chalk Garden has eluded such scrutiny. Indeed, with the exception of one or two age-related artifacts baked into the optical main titles, the rest of this image offers razor-sharp clarity and a heartily robust palette of colors. Flesh tones tend to skew slightly towards orange, though hardly to egregious levels. Fine details abound, from the fine check printed lapels of Maitland’s top coat, to the ruddy clay bricks outlining the St. Maugham estate. It all looks ravishing and will surely enthrall. The 1.0 DTS audio is adequate for this presentation, if hamstrung by the shortcomings of original Westrex sound.  Nevertheless, dialogue is crisply realized, and Malcolm Arnold’s sparse score offers a few well-placed cues to enjoy. Kino has shelled out for a fairly engaging commentary by historian, Tim Lucas – definitely worth a listen. We also get trailers for this and other similarly themed product peddled by Kino. Bottom line: The Chalk Garden may be an imperfect melodrama, but the Blu-ray is as close to perfect as one might expect for a deep catalog release. Bravo and very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1