Synopsis
A picture for every man who has a woman - for every woman who believes in one man.
The parson of a small rural community knows he is dying and this makes him reconsider his life so far and what he can still do to help the community.
Lease of Life
Cast
Robert Donat Kay Walsh Denholm Elliott Adrienne Corri Walter Fitzgerald Reginald Beckwith Vida Hope Cyril Raymond Russell Waters Richard Wattis Beckett Bould Robert Sandford Frank Atkinson Alan Webb Frederick Piper Richard Leech Edie Martin Mark Daly Lockwood West John Salew Jean Anderson Mark Dignam Charles Saynor Sheila Raynor Ernest Blyth Mandy Harper Richard Neller Jim Brady
Director
Producers
Writer
Cinematography
Art Direction
Composer
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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UK
07 Feb 1956
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USANR
Releases by Country
UK
18 Oct 1954
- Theatrical
USA
07 Feb 1956
- TheatricalNR
Popular reviews
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A community-minded film about Robert Donat's character dying too young shot four years before Donat himself died too young was always going to get me.
This doesn't hit all the beats you might expect and it's all the better for it – no miracle cures, only sober acceptance: 'we're all dying, my love'. No magical return of the soldier son, missing in action, to claim his rightful inheritance away from his wicked stepmother (a fantastically glassy, offbeat Vida Hope). Faith doesn't move mountains, only hearts, and even then not most. The parson's wife, Kay Walsh, is oddly spiky and unsympathetic; she's neither punished nor redeemed in the narrative. Donat delivers a strikingly beautiful and moving seven minute monologue on what…
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A thoughtful and affecting moral drama featuring Robert Donat in his penultimate screen appearance. Donat plays a vicar who is informed that he has a year to live and resolves to keep the news from his family while effecting some changes in his life. The film is anchored by Donat's soulful performance and tinged by the retrospective sadness that the actor, himself plagued by ill-health, had only another four years to live.
It is an interesting film in taking religion seriously and in showing an important sermon of the vicar in full. Several ethical buttons are pressed but the melodrama is kept to a minimum, matching the gentle playing of its star. Lease of Life had the scope to deepen the emotional impact but director Charles Frend and writer Eric Ambler mute some of the themes, not always to the film's advantage.
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England, Illustrated. An instructive scene: a dean and headmaster discuss the attributes required for a new chaplain - none of which have much to do with religion. The ideal candidate keen on sport, not too-clever; someone who won’t rock the boat - and no ‘high church’. They don’t find him (an ailing Mr Chips instead). This doesn’t just set the scene for the film but sums up the tone of public-life in the country in general.
Essentially it still does.
Banking, Politics, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Military, the Established Church - roughly in that pecking order - it’s like having each day of the week sown into your underwear: they look the same, feel the same and cover the same backside with…
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Ealing were (and) are so renowned for their comedy movies that it's often forgotten just how many high quality drama films they produced too.
Lease of Life features an almost semi-retired Robert Donat making a rare later appearance producing possibly the performance of his career. It's hard to know whether the clear struggles he has delivering a couple of remarkable monologues here were down to his portrayal of a dying parson or because of the severe problems he was having with asthma. Or maybe it was both.
Sadly, the latter did mean, in a way, he was perfectly cast in this role, but that this was one of the best performances of his career was more down to his skill…
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For reasons I feel no need to go into, Lease on Life’s central sermon is exactly what I needed to hear at the moment. Carried with dignity by all, the ever-lovely Robert Donat is the film’s heart: gently, perhaps weakly beating but beating on nevertheless. He always knew when precisely to reveal his power, and he’s perfectly pitched again here.
In many ways it reminds me of my grandparents and many conversations I’ve had with my parents recently, about generational divides and understanding, about dreaming the best for other people and offering up the worst of yourself as sacrifice. It’s a beautifully understated film that might seem very thin on the surface but has a lot of warmth if absolutely…
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The poster here says 'Dare YOU judge him' so I may have missed the point of this film. Probably just as well as I quite liked it. The religious propaganda didn't seem too overt. The whole film was incredibly genteel which gave it a certain charm. The narrative was fairly slight but there was something rather pleasing about how it all just meandered along. Which is perhaps why I found the ending to be somewhat abrupt. One distraction was that Robert Donat kept reminding me of Harry Enfield. But, ultimately, this film was all about Adrienne Corri's hair which was magnificent.
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“In place of memories,My dreams are locked and barred,Admitting life is hard.”
8/10.
Finding him to be delightful in Carol Reed’s The Young Mr. Pitt (1942-also reviewed), I was intrigued to spot on Talking Pictures free online catch-up service Encore, a Ealing title starring Robert Donat that I had not heard of before, giving me a new lease of life for a viewing.
View on the film:
Returning to the screen after a three year break, Robert Donat gives a heart-breaking performance as Thorne, with Donat putting the long battle he had with chronic asthma into Thorne’s battle with a terminal illness, (with Thorne also having to deal with financial struggles, something Donat also faced during the time he had…
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You know it's a good film when I start simping 5mins in 😩 Robert Donat is the personification of wholesome content in this (but when is he not?), and so a story that could be uncomfortably maudlin ends up being tragic. Also, thought the location looked similar and I find out that it's just up the road from me!!
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This threatened to be a 1950s version of Goodbye, Mr Chips, but this time Robert Donat played an undistinguished country parson rather than an undistinguished school teacher. And, as in Goodbye, Mr Chips, he undergoes a life changing event and comes out of his shell and faces the world with a new determination: in Goodbye, Mr Chips he met a good woman, in Lease of Life he finds out he has an incurable disease and is told he will die in the near future. The film begins by showing a life of depressing drabness: the Rev. William Thorne (Robert Donat) is likeable, but ineffectual and dull; his wife, Vera (Kay Walsh), seems even more washed out and exhausted – and…
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In this British drama directed by Charles Frend, the vicar of a small village reconsiders his life after hearing he has limited time left.
Produced by Ealing studios (which would have a good year for their colour films made in the year of this release, including Lease of Life), Robert Donat (Academy Award winner for Goodbye, Mr Chips) gives a good performance here in his role as William Thorne, a vicar who leads a respectable life as a clergyman.
He is also committed to his community, while supporting his wife and daughter at the same time. However, when the vicar finds out that he does not long left to live, he reconsiders himself and decides to care for those who…
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"What I really want to say to you needs no preparation, because it is so simple, although it has taken all of my life to realise it…"
"Do you believe that life is a veil of tears? I DO NOT."
"I've got something really hot for you - a rogue parson… Yes! …What? …No not that sort…"
I seem to always like these country vicar stories and this was no exception, though it only really picks up in the central sermon scene (I imagine most viewers will be a lot like the boy in the congregation who goes in expecting the usual boring same old and perks up midway when he realises Robert Donat is having a moment). The cast…
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Reverend learns he has limited time to live and decides to stop putting up with others' bullshit and inspire the youth. For something that "isn't my kind of film" (though really I'll watch anything) I really enjoyed this. Great cast of characters, lovely rural English setting and a pace that never allows this to get dull. Robert Donat of The 39 Steps fame (they even mention the book early on!) gives a wonderful final lead performance in a role that somewhat mirrors his own life; both he and the character he's playing here die too young from ill-health. I'd be curious to know if any of this was intentional/Donat knew he had limited time left by the time they were…