The Kingfisher - [DVD]

Short and sweet at 77 minutes, this 1983 made-for-TV adaptation of William Douglas Home's play is delightfully cast, with Rex Harrison, who originated the role of Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady, and Wendy Hiller, the original Liza Doolittle in the 1938 classic Pygmalion. Recreating his stage role, Harrison is at his fussy best as the self-absorbed Cecil, a celebrated author now in his "dotage" and desirous of "a second spring." His spirits are rejuvenated by news of the death of a romantic rival, and he sets out to strike "while the iron is hot" to woo his widow, Evelyn (Hiller), the woman Cecil let get away 50 years before. "I haven't lived, not yet," Cecil tells Hawkins (Cyril Cusack), his faithful, albeit perhaps too attached butler (Cyril Cusack). Hiller is the charming embodiment of a woman who Cecil aptly describes as "everything the doctor ordered in one lovely girl." But Evelyn, just returned from her husband's funeral, is wary of the impetuous Cecil. Over the course of an afternoon and a libation-fueled evening, they talk and reminisce, to the increasing disapproval of Hawkins. But is Cecil 50 years too late? The pleasure of Harrison and Hiller's company more than compensates for the somewhat slim plot. Like the titular bird, The Kingfisher is "a lovely little creature." --Donald Liebenson