Though he wrote several plays and the screenplay for the David Lean version of Hobson's Choice Wynyard Browne's main claim to fame was that he was at Cambridge with Michael Redgrave. The Holly And The Ivy was arguably his most successful play and his adaptation for the screen reflects - despite some misguided 'opening out' - its peculiar 'English' quality. I haven't seen the play but I HAVE seen enough plays to make an educated guess that it was a one-set effort with Act One setting the scene, a parsonage/vicarage in rural Norfolk, and bringing in the family members piecemeal to celebrate Christmas with those members in turn bringing their emotional baggage. The patriarch, Ralph Richardson on top of his game, is a widower with three children, one, Celia Johnson, the stay-at-home devoted daughter prepared to sacrifice her own happiness to take care of the elderly clergyman, one, Margaret Leighton, a high-flying career woman in London, and one, Denholm Elliott, a callow youth doing his 'National Service' in the British army and these three are supplemented by two aunts, Maureen Delaney and Margaret Halston. Arguably Browne originally wrote a tight, well-made family drama which benefited from the one set but he - or the producer - has seen fit to introduce us to the children/aunts prior to their arrival for the Christmas celebrations which involved creating supplementary characters i.e., Elliott's superiors in the army who place him on a charge and grant him a pass for the holidays. That cavil to one side the bulk of the film is yet another cross between a time capsule and a valentine to an England long gone the way of the dinosaur except of course that in 1952 the England depicted still existed. Browne offers a basic conflict; Celia Johnson is in love with John Gregson who in turn has a job opportunity abroad. She would dearly love to go with him but feels unable to ask her successful sister to give up her career and return home - the aunts are themselves elderly and set in their ways and Mick (Elliott) is a non-starter. Someone has remarked on these boards that Celia Johnson is too old to play a thirty one year old and whilst that's probably - and certainly biologically - true she's such a fine actress that the gets away with it easily though she is hardly being extended here in which she basically reprises her Laura Jesson in 'Brief Encounter', in love with one man but bound to another, the difference being that in the former she was bound to a husband and here she is bound to a father. John Gregson, who plays her potential husband, was never much more than a personable leading man of the solid, dependable kind, the tweedy, pipe-smoking stock character so beloved of British dramatists and here he's required to do little more than offer his impression of a mahogany sideboard. Margaret Leighton turns in yet another variant of the beautiful ice-maiden longing to show her cuddly kitten side and it is her character - obliged to conceal an illegitimate child that today she would flaunt - that perhaps illustrates the gap between life half a century ago and today. Somehow it all comes together and makes for a warm, nostalgic viewing experience.

"The Holly and the Ivy" is a very good film...filled with some exceptional acting. However, before you watch it, you need to consider what content is in the movie. Sure, it's a Christmas film...but also one that easily could trigger your depression if you've been struggling with it. It also brings up things that are NOT fun and Christmassy....such as dead lovers and children. So think about seeing it before you do!!

The story is about Christmas and a group of people who are all returning to a small British town for the holiday and to spend it with the Parson (Ralph Richardson). Most of the people coming have secrets...things they SHOULD talk about with family but haven't for inexplicable reasons. In most cases, they don't bring it up with the Parson because they perceive that he'll be judgmental and a parson first...not a father. How all this plays out is marvelous...with some brilliant acting. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the problems are all worked out so quickly and easily...perhaps a bit too much so. Adding a few minutes to show this process would have made the film even better. Still, the acting is magnificent and the story filled with a gritty realism otherwise. Well worth seeing.

Watching The Holly And The Ivy for the first time in decades tonight I was made conscious of the fact that there is one unseen character in the film whose presence hovers over all the action. That is the presence of the late wife of Ralph Richardson. This is the first year of Christmas without her and her role was keeper of the home and keeper of the secrets. The late Mrs. Gregory provided a proper balance for all concerned.

Ralph Richardson stars as a country vicar who is having the first Christmas without the wife. Will two of his three children even make it. His son Denholm Elliott is in the army and from what we see not the most military minded of soldiers. Still he has a gift of gab and wangles a pass.

Celia Johnson will be there, she now watches out for her father assuming her mother's role. But John Gregson wants to marry her and he's going away on an engineering job in South America, but she feels obligated to stay and take care of Richardson.

Margaret Leighton the other sister lives in London and writes for fashion magazines and also parties hearty. She has more secrets than any of them and she most of all feels the fact she's a minister's daughter and is really not living up to a standard.

When you come right down to it the three of them are preacher's kids. I don't think that we can ever solve the problem of the expectations one has when you are the offspring of clergy. For some reason more is expected of you though why that should be God only knows. Still a lot of things are kept from the vicar and I suspect their late mother was the one they went to and who kept things from Richardson.

The Holly And The Ivy provides Ralph Richardson with one of his finest cinematic roles. It's a complex part, he's not a bible thumping revivalist, in fact we see he's a very educated man. Still he has his standards and his children in one aspect of another have disappointed him.

The Holly And The Ivy ran on the London stage for a couple of years and two of the cast members, Margaret Halstan and Maureen Delaney, repeat their stage roles. They are the maiden aunts of the kids and provide some interesting commentary and advice.

This film about post World War II rural England holds up very well after three quarters of a century. It's an unusual holiday classic and not to be missed.