AWARDS & HONORS

Dorothy Tutin was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer in the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA).

The Importance of Being Earnest was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

THE CRITICS' CORNER

"Anthony Asquith was trying to persuade me this week that his screen version of The Importance of Being Earnest...is a film. I hope to see the day when Mr. Asquith will retract that opinion. As one of the three best film directors in this country he should not be deceiving himself about photographed stage plays. We must look for the time when he will once more believe like any other true screen artist that the business of film technique is to tell a story pictorially." - Jympson Harman, The London Evening News

"The fact that Mr. Asquith has cast Dame Edith Evans in the role of Lady Bracknell, a veritable 'gorgon,' who precisely, arrogantly and to the manner born declares that 'to lose one parent is a misfortune, to lose both is downright carelessness,' has shown true genius." - The New York Times

"Oscar Wilde's deliriously convoluted, perfect comedy -- the most preposterous work of art ever written. Wit cascades through the play in a natural flow....People who have seen this movie have been known to giggle with pleasure years later as they recall the timbre and phrasing that Edith Evans gives to such lines as 'Prism! Where is that baby?'" - Pauline Kael, 5,001 Nights at the Movies

"Disappointingly stagy rendering (when compared, say, with Occupe-toi-d'Amelie, 1949) of Britain's most wondrously witty lighter-than-air comedy of manners. As a record of a theatrical performance, however, it is valuable." - Halliwell's Film & Video Survey.

"A more positive decision on style should have been taken. A film of this kind must be either an adaptation or a piece of filmed theatre. This one, being partially both, is not wholly either." - Gavin Lambert.

"...a decent reading of the play." - David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.

"...[Asquith's] cameras do little more than reverently record a great patriotic theatrical event. But the settings are the epitome of Victorian plushness, the colour is Technicolor at its fruitiest, and most of the playing is disarming, particularly Edith Evans and her handbag." - Geoff Brown, TimeOut Film Guide.

"Despite a few tweaks to Oscar Wilde's frighteningly witty play, director and writer Anthony Asquith serves up a truly delightful screen version of The Importance of Being Earnest...All the performances are a sheer delight to watch with plaudits going to Margaret Rutherford as the wonderfully dotty Miss Prism and Edith Evans as the formidable Lady Bracknell." - Almar Haflidason, bbc.co.uk

"Asquith allows his actors to milk these lines to maximum effect. Evans, particularly, uses all manner of verbal trickery to heighten the absurdity of her character...Such carrying on is amusing for awhile, but like the play, it overstays its welcome. With all the characters and all their concerns blatant mouthpieces for the author's wit, never emerging into their own personalities, the film becomes tiresome and irritating, drained of life by the hammering of bravura dialogue and the flatness of its characters. This Importance of Being Earnest works as a letter-perfect historical record of the play, and so rises and falls on the strength of that play rather than on its (nonexistent) cinematic impulses." - Gary Morris, Images Journal.

"This is straight-on filming of a stage play-only, with the additions film will allow, Asquith adds some lovely close-ups, showing off the cast and the dazzling set pieces and costumes to full advantage. The Importance of Being Earnest begins with a red velvet curtain going up, and it ends with the curtain coming down. It's a fabulous touch, proving that Anthony Asquith knew what he was doing: Preserving for future generations the work of a Master. Obviously, I highly recommend this film; it's beautiful, charming, simply made, and the perfect reminder for our time of the work of one of the best of the Victorian playwrights." - Laurie Edwards, culturedose.net

Compiled by Frank Miller & Jeff Stafford