Hedda *** (1975, Glenda Jackson, Timothy West, Peter Eyre, Jennie Linden, Patrick Stewart) – Classic Movie Review 10,730

Writer-director Trevor Nunn’s 1975 drama Hedda is a moderate, rather heavy-going, and uncinematic but beautifully acted film version of Jackson’s Royal Shakespeare Company stage performance as Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Nunn adapts it from the stage version, produced with largely the same cast.

Oscar nominee Glenda Jackson’s powerful acting as the ambitious, loveless heroine is by far the film’s biggest attraction, though Timothy West gets a look in as her professor husband, Brach, and so does Patrick Stewart as his rival, Ejlert Løvborg.

Nicely fleshing out the support are Peter Eyre as Tesman, Constance Chapman as Julie, Jennie Linden as Mrs Thea Elvsted, and Pam St Clement as Bertha.

It is a poignant reminder of what a loss to acting Jackson’s move to politics was.

A Touch of Class (1973) is one of the highspots of Glenda Jackson’s career, bringing her a second Best Actress Oscar (after 1969’s Women in Love). She is also a Best Actress Oscar nominee for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and Hedda (1975).

It is the first film directed by Trevor Nunn.

Jackson and Linden starred together as sisters in Women in Love.

It is the second theatrical movie of Patrick Stewart, released in December 1975 while Hennessy (1975) was released in July.

 © Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,730

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