Films and Filming – Aug 1955

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Personality of the month

Dirk Bogarde: Who has made 21 films in 7 years.

In 1947 a little-known actor became the talk of the West End. He was a shy young man, apparently. A dinner invitation from a theatre impresario was politely refused. But the reason was not shyness. Dirk Bogarde’s only spare shirt was at the laundry and there was no time to wash and iron the other – which he was wearing.

Now, with 20 films to his credit, and Doctor at Sea, his 21st, just coming up for release, Bogarde has all the shirts he needs, a luxurious farm-house in Buckinghamshire and a place among the top box-office favourites. He learned acting the hard way. Born in Hampstead, London, 35 years ago, he got his first job with the little Q Theatre at Richmond. For 7/6 a week he made tea for the company. When one of the cast of Priestley’s comedy When We Are Married fell ill, Bogarde took over the part. He played the foot-man, and he had exactly one line. But he had started.

The war stopped his career for five years. He was demobilised from the army with the rank of major in 1946. Within a year his playing of the neurotic younger son in Power Without Glory brought him stardom and a contract with J. Arthur Rank. Bogarde, as an actor, is limited. A part like that of the frustrated pianist in Somerset Maugham’s Quartet found him ill-at-ease. It is when he plays on the wrong side of the law that he comes into his own. He is the essence of spivvishness – as bogus as a padded shoulder, jaunty as a London street and as brash, if not as resilient, as a dodgem car.

His success has been astonishing. He has made 21 films in 7 years and starred in all of them. Making his debut in Esther Waters in 1948 when the post-war British film-boom was at its height, Bogarde has seen all his screen rivals vanish, running to fat, going to Hollywood or finding their level in “B” features.

The secret of his success is three-fold. He is a bachelor, which puts up his stock with his female following. He is a product of the theatre and not the charm-school, so that he has a hard core of technique to bring to all his performances. And with his good looks he has made out of the spiv, the deserter and the petty thug creatures of mystery and fascination.

As a comedian he is wide-eyed and diffident. The diffidence is obviously attractive. Doctor In The House, in which he played Simon Sparrow, a medical student, attracted more people to the box-office in 1953 than any other British film. Doctor At Sea, his 21st film, will be a sequel to it. It continues the trend of Bogarde’s films towards “niceness.” A trend which he would be unwise to follow too far. For devilry is Dirk Bogarde’s most personal contribution to the screen – and his most profitable.