Down the Primrose Path with “That Hamilton Woman”

Frankly, I’m not quite sure why I decided to watch That Hamilton Woman, though I doubtless was curious about seeing Laurence Olivier playing opposite his new wife, Vivien Leigh. The 1941 film turns out to be an enjoyable account of a young woman with a checkered past first agreeing to marry an ageing British diplomat who collects lovely things, and then falling hard for a naval hero, Admiral Horatio Nelson. The implications of their liaison are spelled out in a film that looks sumptuous but is not. The Criterion Collection copy I watched is graced by the presence of an interview with the very articulate Michael Korda, who as a young boy romped amid the fake warships at the Hollywood studio (Fox, if I recall correctly) where the film was being shot. Meanwhile, his father, Vincent, created fabulous sets for the movie, which his uncle, Alexander Korda, produced and directed.

 Sir Alexander Korda and his two brothers began life in Hungary, but the political currents of the early 20^th century (and their lowly status as Jews) soon had them traveling all over Europe in search of film-related careers.  Alexander, in particular, came to consider England home, and Winston Churchill was one of his closest friends. It was in many ways thanks to Churchill that he and the family came to California early in World War II, not only to escape the privations of Britain during that perilous era but also (at Churchill’s urging) to make films that would plead Britain’s case during a period when the U.S. was still officially unaligned. It’s easy to spot that the rapacious Napoleon, determined to take over all of Europe, is intended to be, in the eyes of the audience, a stand-in for Adolf Hitler.  And part of the film’s raison d’être is to remind American of the danger of passivity in the face of real enemies.

 That Hamilton Woman is, of course, a juicy period romance, anchored by a pretty woman who’s no better than she should be and a legendary hero revered for taking on Napoleon in battle. There’s no one better than Leigh at portraying girlish charm, and she gets a few heroic moments too. (Let’s not forget her triumph 2 years earlier in Gone With the Wind.) As Nelson, Olivier is cast in the less showy part, one that requires him mostly to be impressive and unflinching, even as his physical self crumbles. Of course his wife of many years (Gladys Cooper) is depicted as cold and tough-minded, and it’s made clear when first he meets Emma Hamilton that, because of his wartime role keeping Napoleon’s France in check, he has not seen his spouse in seven years, which would certainly had helped their ardor (if there was any) to cool off.  But since Hollywood’s Production Code was still very much in effect, the love affair between Nelson and Emma is not allowed to reveal its own steam. (That baby daughter who’s officially registered by Emma under an assumed last name must have come from somewhere, but there’s precious little canoodling in this movie.) And, of course, Emma eventually has to suffer for her moral transgression: the film is bookended by doubtless apocryphal scenes of her as a haggard and penniless alcoholic. The wages of sin . . .  et cetera et cetera.

 I was astonished to learn That Hamilton Woman was shot in a mere five weeks. It looks lovely, and makes for a nice anti-fascist history lesson, one that it would not hurt all of us to remember.