Candleshoe (1977)

Director: Norman Tokar
Writers: David Swift and Rosemary Anne Sisson, based on the book Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes
Stars: David Niven, Helen Hayes, Jodie Foster, Leo McKern and Vivian Pickles

Index: The First Thirty.

The halfway point film in Jodie Foster’s First Thirty is important for a few reasons, none of which are apparent within the movie itself.

It was her final picture for Disney as a child actor. In fact, it was her final picture as a child actor, full stop, because she took a three year break after eight features in merely two years, returning to the big screen at eighteen. It was also the reason why she turned down a rather notable role, to hindsight at least, that being a certain Princess Leia in Star Wars.

It’s a good, if unspectacular, film and she’s a highlight within it as the character with easily the best character arc. However, for once she’s upstaged by another actor, as David Niven has a peach of a role, not only playing a traditional English butler, of the sort he could play in his sleep, but also every other member of the staff at an English country estate.

Now, he doesn’t do that in the fashion of Sir Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers, simply shifting between a slew of different parts. He’s always Priory the butler to us, whatever part Priory is playing, but he’s everyone to Lady Gwendolyn St. Edmund as she can’t afford staff any more but he doesn’t want her to know that. The rest of the residents of Candleshoe know his secret and happily play along.

If that sounds familiar, then you’ll have read my review of Fitzwilly, with its similar conceit a decade earlier. I watched that last December for Dick van Dyke’s centennial. He only played one character, but the scenario was the same and he ran a criminal empire to keep the place afloat. Priory merely sells produce in the local marketplace to make ends meet.

I should add that, if this seems derivative, it isn’t, as it’s based on a novel first published in 1953, while the source novel for Fitzwilly came out in 1960. This could therefore be a situation similar to Carnosaur and Jurassic Park, where a book borrowed from a different book that was turned into a successful film that was ripped off by another film based on the original book.

Meanwhile, a long way from rural England—Candleshoe was shot at Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire—Casey Brown is causing trouble on the streets of a big American city. She’s the orphan leader of a gang of young delinquents with the cops on her tail, but Harry Brundage finds her first and, after effectively buying her from what must be her foster parents, has an opportunity for her.

He thinks Casey’s the perfect fit to turn into the Honourable Margaret, 4th Marchioness of Candleshoe, who went missing a decade ago at the age of four. She looks like Margaret, right down to a scar on her shoulder, and she’s the core of Harry’s plan to find and steal a pirate treasure from under the noses of its owners.

You see, her ladyship’s heritage goes back to Capt. Joshua St. Edmund, who was a privateer. He built a pirate treasure and supposedly hid it on the Candleshoe estate but nobody has yet figured out where. Clara Grimsworthy found a clue in a compartment hidden in a bedpost as she was cleaning the bedroom and then took it to Harry to exploit.

Foster is great here. She’s a sassy kid with a fast mouth who always believes that she has a way out of everything, even being taken away. All Leo McKern’s best scenes as Harry come at the beginning of the film as we’re learning the plan. He slaps Casey when she sasses him. He’s still in control at this point, but it doesn’t last, because she’s a far better conman than him, as we soon find when they visit Lady Gwendolyn at Candleshoe and Casey goes way off script.

After that, Harry turns into a cheap villain who blusters and threatens with little effect. It doesn’t matter too much, because once we get to Candleshoe we meet Priory and Niven can take over the limelight from McKern. That her ladyship is played by the glorious Helen Hayes is something of a welcome bonus.

Niven is a sheer joy. He’s excellent as Priory, understated but still clearly in charge, not just of the house but the various orphans that have been taken in by her ladyship. However, every one of the other former members of the staff whose personae he has taken on is a challenge for Priory and an opportunity for Niven, who’s gleefully crotchetty as the gardener, thankful as the chauffeur and outrageous as the regular monthly guest, Col. Dennis.

I haven’t read the source novel but the story is a fun but inconsequential treasure hunt, the eventual happy ending never in doubt and the safety of the children who comprise the bulk of the cast always assured. The clues that lead to the treasure are suitably cryptic, albeit not much so that it’s hard to believe that they had never been successfully followed until now.

At least, that’s the obvious story. I’d suggest that it’s really more of a backdrop, because the real story is the character arc of Casey Brown.

She starts without a family, orphaned and living with adults that don’t know what to do with her or at least prove unable to reach her. She’s a wild child and, as talented as she is, she isn’t on a good life trajectory; there are a lot of ways it could go but few of them are positive.

And then she’s taken to Candleshoe, as part of a con. She’s pretending to be someone she’s not, in order to fleece the family of a fortune. Even though she’s played by Jodie Foster and she deserves some sympathy for her situation, we’d be wrong to be on her side at this point.

At what point she becomes the right side is open for discussion but she gets there and the fully expected ending, when everything’s said and done and she’s waiting for a train to start her journey back to the States, is powerful. It’s fair to say that Foster can’t outdo Helen Hayes in this scene but she gives it a heck of a shot.

So this is a found family story, if I’ve got the trope name right. We’ve spent the whole film knowing that Casey is not Margaret but I’ll be damned if I didn’t start wondering if she really was and never knew it. Even if she isn’t, as we ought to continue to believe, it doesn’t matter. She’s one of the family at this point anyway, a realisation that makes the ending a beginning.

I liked this. I’ve never been a huge fan of the Disney live action movies and this project has done little to dissuade me of that notion. They have moments (Priory stopping the car on the railway being my favourite here) but they’re a safe and often dated bunch.

This was Foster’s sixth and final picture for them as a child actor and, as flawed as it is, it’s easily the best of them.