Weston Library Film Club: Hobson's Choice

Thursday, November 19, 2026 1:30—4:15 PM Community Room Weston Public Library 87 School Street, Weston, MA, 02493 HOBSON’S CHOICE 1954, 108 minutes A decade before he made Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, David Lean directed this film set in 1880s Manchester. Charles Laughton plays Henry Hobson, a drunken blowhard of a shopkeeper. With his three adult daughters serving as unpaid employees, Hobson sells high-end boots made by his harried craftsman, Will Mossup, who is kept out of view in a dungeon-like basement workshop. Hobson’s flighty younger daughters, Alice and Vicky, have suitors ready to marry them, but Hobson is too stingy to provide a dowry. Hobson has no intention of letting his ever-reliable eldest daughter Maggie marry, having decided that she is too valuable a worker. Maggie has other ideas—namely polishing up the talented but painfully shy Will as a husband with whom she can open her own shop. What makes this film so vivid are the memorable performances. Laughton, for all his bluster is a veritable John Bull—the very soul of England. Brenda De Banzie plays Maggie as a father’s daughter with an iron resolve and a generous heart. But it is John Mills who shines out, as his Will Mossup evolves from a beaten drudge to a capable merchant and loving partner. BE ADVISED— this film is Not Rated, with lots of drinking (mostly by Hobson), temperance, stringent classism, and a smoky old Manchester worthy of Dickens.