SYNOPSIS
Carol Reed’s sensitivity to the nuances of the British class system permeates this well-meshed adaptation of H. G. Wells’s 1905 comic novel KIPPS: THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL. Starring Michael Redgrave as Arthur Kipps, the film traces the progress of a young man, orphaned at birth, who aspires to be something more than a lowly draper’s apprentice. When, by a twist of fate, he learns that his parents have left him a considerable fortune, his prayers are answered. He becomes engaged to a pretentious woodcarving teacher, Helen Walshingham (Diana Wynyard), who had previously ignored him. As Kipps moves into the world of the upper classes, he meets Chester Coote (Max Adrian), a cultivated mountebank who is the guru of Diana’s social circle of dilettantes. After he, among others, manage to separate Kipps from a substantial amount of his wealth, Helen begins to lose interest in her fiancé. As bankruptcy threatens, a chance meeting with a former friend, Ann Pornick (Phyllis Calvert), makes the young man begin to reconsider his view of money and his engagement to Helen. From the drudgery of a turn-of-the century draper’s shop to the hypocrisy of an aristocratic drawing room, Reed’s restrained yet observant direction is perfectly suited to this Dickensian comedy of manners.
