A Feather in Her Hat

1935
Approved
1h 12m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Billie Burke, Basil Rathbone, Wendy Barrie, Louis Hayward, Pauline Lord, and Nydia Westman in A Feather in Her Hat (1935)

A loving mother tells her son that he isn't hers so that the boy will be able to climb out of their poor surroundings. He goes on to become a playwright, and his mother sells her store to pr... Read allA loving mother tells her son that he isn't hers so that the boy will be able to climb out of their poor surroundings. He goes on to become a playwright, and his mother sells her store to produce his first play. At the end of the film, the mother reveals that she lied about her s... Read allA loving mother tells her son that he isn't hers so that the boy will be able to climb out of their poor surroundings. He goes on to become a playwright, and his mother sells her store to produce his first play. At the end of the film, the mother reveals that she lied about her son's birthright.

Director
- Alfred Santell
Writers
- Lawrence Hazard
- I.A.R. Wylie
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.1/10

225

YOUR RATING

Director
- Alfred Santell
Writers
- Lawrence Hazard
- I.A.R. Wylie
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

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Trivia
In his classic autobiography 'The Moon's A Balloon', David Niven recalls how nervous he was when he made this movie and his first take was filled with error -- so he was amazed when the cast and extras applauded him. The director told Niven he was perfect and then asked him to do it again "for safety" and Niven --now absent of nerves -- did the scene without a hitch. Later he learned the director had secretly told the cast and crew that Niven was new, probably nervous, and to applaud for him no matter how poorly he did. Only on the second take did he have film in the camera and recorded the scene. For that kindness, Niven put Santell in his 'Hall of Fame'.

User reviews12

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Featured review

6/10

Sappy melodrama

Pauline Lord gets top billing as Clarissa Phelps, a lower-class English shop keeper with a young son, Richard. She wants a better life for him than she's had, so she finds a homeless, alcoholic WW1 vet named Randolph Courtney (Basil Rathbone), a former member of the upper classes, and brings him home, giving him room and board in exchange for teaching her son to act like a respectable member of society. Richard grows into manhood (Louis Hayward), at which point he sets out to make a name for himself, becoming involved with society girl Pauline (Wendy Barrie).

Pauline Lord was a major star of the American and British stage, highly respected for starring in the original productions of Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, and many others. She only appeared in two films, 1934's Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and this one. She decided films weren't for her, and never made another, eventually dying in a car crash at age 60 in 1950. I can't speak for that previous film, but this one wouldn't endear me to the art form, either. It's a tired rehash of "suffering mother" tropes that had already become cliches before sound entered pictures. I watched this for Basil, who's good in a promising role, but although he received second billing, behind only Lord, both he and she are relegated to the back burner once Hayward enters the film, and it becomes a tedious romantic triangle between Hayward, Wendy Barrie and Westman. Things liven up a bit when Niven is around as another suitor of Barrie's, but that isn't often enough.