Sunk at Cadiz

By J.C.

THE NELSON AFFAIR

Directed by JAMES CELLAN JONES

Screenplay by TERENCE RATTIGAN

Here are Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson, two players of skill and intelligence, lending dignity and a measure of passion to a sort of pocket pageant that could bring out the worst in any actor. Rattigan's script--an adaptation of his play A Bequest to the Nation--is a damp recounting of the infamous romance between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, a liaison that scandalized Georgian London and threatened, for a time, Britain's naval might.

The film begins with Nelson returning home after two years in the Mediterranean, heartily sick of the navy and hungry for Emma Hamilton's freewheeling affections. The admiralty hopes that after a few weeks of shore leave, he will be ready to re-engage the pesky French Admiral Villeneuve. Lady Hamilton insists that her feelings must come before the welfare of the Empire. Her wiles prove so alluring that Nelson opts for permanent shore leave at his country estate in Surrey. But then Nelson's Flag Captain Hardy (Michael Jayston) pops up to press Nelson back into service. Villeneuve must be engaged at Cadiz, Hardy splutters, else Britain will be in great peril.

Honor prevails. "I don't want only half a man, with the better half pining to be out at sea," Lady Hamilton finally decides. Nelson goes to sea and the fleet triumphs, but in the process Nelson is killed. He leaves Lady Hamilton as a "bequest to the nation," so that she may be officially provided for during the rest of her life. An epilogue provides the information that Nelson's dying request was not honored; Lady Hamilton perishes in poverty in Calais. Scenes of her final days would have been a good deal more dramatic than the domestic wrangling and political pettifogging that make up most of the film. Producer Hal Wallis thriftily restages the battle of Cadiz largely by using footage from some old swashbuckler like Captain Horatio Hornblower. Lord Nelson meets his end during a bombardment of old film clips.

Finch and Jackson are clever enough to fight their way through the musty veneer. Finch is both salty and regal, gently flamboyant without ever becoming grandiloquent, a trap that Rattigan's script sets for him at every turn. Because Jackson is an eminently subtle actress, her Emma Hamilton is not merely a creature of fire, but a vulnerability imperfectly concealed beneath layers of scar tissue. The supporting actors are stalwart, except for Michael Jayston, who suffers from a kind of congenital insipidity.

--J.C.

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