Anthony Asquith makes no attempt to 'open out' Oscar Wilde's great comedy of manners, (the best ever written in the English language), so essentially what we are seeing is about the best performance you could possibly have of a very great play due entirely to Asquith's understated direction and the consummate playing of his cast. Edith Evan's Lady Bracknell is already legendary, (a radical reinterpretation of the part is what is required if anyone else is to make an impression in the role), but so too are Michael Redgrave's Jack Worthing and Michael Denison's Algernon Moncrieff. (Redgrave is prissy and fey and very Wildean while Denison has a wonderfully easy-going loucheness about him). Nor can one fault Joan Greenwood as Gwendolen, (more tiger than kitten), or Dorothy Tutin as Cecily, (fresh faced innocence betraying a steely core), while Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism wobbles that great chin of hers like a marshmallow on a low heat, (it may be her best and most undervalued performance). Hardly cinema in any traditional sense of the word, then, but it is to be treasured all the same.
Review of The Importance of Being Earnest
