Basil Rathbone: The Winslow Boy

A drama in two acts and four scenes by Terrance Rattigan. Basil Rathbone appeared in summer stock productions of The Winslow Boy in 1950, 1954, 1955, and 1960.

The action of the play takes place in Arthur Winslow's house in Kensington, London, and extends over two years of a period preceding the First World War.

The play centers on Arthur Winslow's struggle to clear his son's name after the boy (fourteen-year-old Ronnie) is falsely accused of theft and forgery at a naval academy. Ronnie's father engages a leading barrister, Sir Robert Morton, to challenge the Admiralty to prove the charges in court. Basil Rathbone played the role of the barrister.

Terrence Rattigan's play is based on an actual case in England, the Archer-Shee case, that aroused the attention and sympathy of the entire nation.

When Basil Rathbone was asked why he chose The Winslow Boy as his summer stock play, he gave the credit to his wife Ouida. He explained that while he was appearing in The Heiress on Broadway (1947), Ouida went to another theater and saw The Winslow Boy.

"We arrived home at the same time one night, she from just having seen the first performance of The Winslow Boy. She was rhapsodic, no less, about everything; the play, the production, the acting and the direction. She thought Alan Webb was fine as the father, and Frank Allenby superb as the coldly witty, high principled barrister."

She told Basil that he should be playing the role of the barrister. "It was made for you," she said.

Some time later when Rathbone saw a performance of The Winslow Boy, he was every bit as delighted as his wife with everything about it, including Allenby's portrait of Sir Robert Morton.

"However, I thought nothing of it," he says, "until my agent called early in the summer and asked what I would do as a play this season. Instantly, I knew that I had no choice, that Mrs. Rathbone had made it for me that night she saw The Winslow Boy."

(Adapted from Jay Carmody's article in the Washington Evening Star, August 8, 1950)

Cast of Characters in 1950 Summer Stock Performances

Sir Robert Morton	Basil Rathbone
Desmond Curry	Harold Kennedy/Anthony Kemble Cooper/Booth Colman
Grace Winslow (mother)	Pamela Simpson
Dickie Winslow (older brother)	Frank Flumara/William Whitman
John Watherstone	Frank de Lucca/Jon Dawson/Robert Seaver
Ronnie Winslow (accused boy)	Barry Truex/Donald Rose/David Cole
Violet (the maid)	Paula Pelcher/Hazel Jones/Mary McNamee
Arthur Winslow (father)	Harry Mehaffey/Colin Keith-Johnston
Catherine Winslow (sister)	Priscilla Weaver/Meg Mundy/June Dayton

Several of the cast members changed when the play opened in a new location. One may presume that the actors who performed in East Hartford (Harry Mehaffey, Harold Kennedy, Priscilla Weaver, Barry Truex, Pamela Simpson, Paula Pelcher, Frank de Lucca, Frank Flumara) also performed at the Academy of Music in Northampton on May 11. With the exception of Basil Rathbone and Pamela Simpson, none of the actors who performed in East Hartford and Northampton acted in other locations with Rathbone that summer.

Meg Mundy joined the cast for the performances in Ann Arbor and stayed with cast through July. She left to appear in another play, and June Dayton replaced her as Catherine Winslow. Meg Mundy came back to the cast for the Pocono Playhouse performances.

"Mr. Rathbone has the role of the celebrated and baronetical barrister who takes the case into court and scuttles the Admiralty. Beautifully replete with fur-trimmed coat, spongebag trousers, goldheaded stick and an aristocratically twitching nose, he manages to be at once the 'cold fish' that one character claims and a bully fellow. His performance is that blend of suavity, aloofness and irony which have long been his special, and especially successful, recipe for taking over an audience. It is again, here." —Hartford Courant, May 9, 1950

In Ann Arbor the play was performed Tuesday through Saturday, with matinees Thursday and Saturday afternoons. The Detroit News (May 31, 1950) reported, "Rathbone's character has an icy surface which, we are persuaded, covers an uncommonly kind heart. It may be played frigidly, with the warmth finally breaking through, or with the two traits concurrently visible. Rathbone chooses the latter method, preferring an early sympathy to the great effect of an ultimate, agreeable surprise."

"The dramatic peaks of the play rested on the capable shoulders of Basil Rathbone. His sharp portrayal of Sir Robert Morton, the distinguished barrister who finally wins vindication for Ronnie, brought the entire play into focus." —The Ann Arbor News, May 31, 1950

The poise of Basil Rathbone, when the back of a period chair in which he was reclining, fell apart during a tense scene of The Winslow Boy, last Monday, earned for him a heavy round of applause from the Westport Country Playhouse audience.

The scene was one in which Mr. Rathbone, playing the role of a barrister, was about to answer the telephone in the Winslow home. As he picked up the receiver, and leaned back comfortably and heavily in his chair, the back cracked and fell apart as the actor said, "Hello."

A startled expression flit across his face momentarily, and he uttered a low "oh," but he went on with the show, adlibbing casually into the telephone, "Just a slight accident."

In the scenes which followed, the chair had done a disappearing act.

— The Connecticut Post, July 23, 1950

Regarding performances in Westport (staged by Martin Manulis), The Norwalk Hour, (July 18, 1950) reported, "Mr. Rathbone, as the leading legal light, gave to his role the sophistication, polish and suaveness that are particularly his. A magnificent actor, he played his role to the hilt."

A reporter at the Ivoryton Playhouse wrote, "Basil Rathbone gets a late start in the action but soon dominates the situations in a tale based on a heroic struggle to carry through the fight against all British traditions of procedure and against seeming overwhelming evidence against a young student. Rathbone is the advocate, not only of the boy but of the rights of a people. His mannerisms and poses somehow strengthen his portrayal of the part and he is the center of the tribute of applause given at the play's end." —George H. Grout, The Day (New London, Connecticut), July 25, 1950

At the Olney Theater, Rathbone played "Sir Robert excellently, with a fine sense for both the comic and the warmly appealing in the character." —Harry MacArthur, The Evening Star, August 9, 1950

"Rathbone's ability has never proved so sterling before." —Leo Sullivan, The Times Herald, August 10, 1950

In an interview, Booth Colman, who played Desmond Curry in The Winslow Boy, told this anecdote about Basil Rathbone and the play. Although he says it was 1951, it was in fact 1950.

In '51 I was with Rathbone in the summer tour of The Winslow Boy. . . . We opened in Westport, Connecticut, at the Theater Guild's summer theater there. We were supposed to play two or three dates of a week apiece, but frankly the company was so good that it got bookings and went on for a number of months. Basil Rathbone had taken over the direction of the play—they had had a disagreement with whoever it was who began it. It was a very fine production and he was wonderful in the part. Of the various people who played the part, I think he was probably the best in it. . . . Rathbone was easily the best in the [lawyer] part because he had that icy, "fish" quality that it needed. ... [Basil] was fine, a wonderful director.

Booth Colman, quoted in I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 Science Fiction and Horror Filmmakers (by Tom Weaver), 2001

"As the brilliant lawyer who makes the case his own, Basil Rathbone did a fine job—theatrical, but then, a great trial lawyer has to be two-thirds actor." —Janetta Somerset, The Baltimore Sun, April 21, 1954

The Winslow Boy grossed only $2872 during the run at Swann’s Hilltop Theater (near Baltimore). The play did much better in Boston. In spite of bad weather, it grossed about $6000.

"Basil Rathbone, starring in the role of the brilliant Sir Robert Morton who defends the Winslow boy, plays incisively and with a sure sense of theatrical effect in a role that is patently designed for just such treatment." —Elinor Hughes, Boston Herald, September 7, 1954

On September 5, 1954, while he was in Boston, Basil Rathbone visited Gilchrist's Department store. The store was known for its Golden Almond Macaroons, which were so popular that they were shipped all over the country. Apparently, Rathbone was a fan of the macaroons; he was invited to watch them being baked.

On Sept. 10, Rathbone wrote to a friend, “Our play has been badly hurt by the hurricane & bad weather. We had such splendid review & were hoping for a profitable week.” Basil was probably referring to Hurricane Carol, which caused a great deal of damage in the Boston area around September 1. Hurricane Edna followed closely behind, but didn’t hit Massachusetts until September 11, which is after Basil wrote his letter. September 11 was, however, the date of the Saturday matinee mentioned in a brief article from Variety (September 15, 1954):

Basil Rathbone at Boston in The Winslow Boy

The final week of the Boston Summer Theater at New England Mutual Hall is one of its best dramatically, with Basil Rathbone and a top-notch cast playing The Winslow Boy to the hilt. ...

No Sherlock Holmes devotee will ever forget the tall, angular Rathbone of the imperturbable clipped speech as the embodiment of their hero of detection and his first entrance in this play as Sir Robert Morton, who sees that right and justice are done, is a delight for Homes' enthusiasts. In William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes, his entrance was made dramatically effective by the sound of a closing door off-stage, a two-second wait and the appearance of Conan Doyle's hero. Mr. Rathbone makes use of this suspense-builder and then makes an especially dramatic entrance in the elegant full dress of the early 1900s.

—A. E. Watts, Boston Traveler, September 7, 1954

Except for Basil Rathbone, the cast of the special production of The Winslow Boy in Tacoma, Washington, consisted of Pacific Lutheran College students. Rathbone presented a program of interpretative reading in the afternoon, and performed in The Winslow Boy in the evening. Members of the student cast included Lucile Smith, Lawrence Duran, Carol Hartman, Jean Christianson, Neil Munson, Glenn Johnson, Alden McKechney, Patricia Bondurant, Charles Slater, and David Wold. The director was Professor Theodore O. H. Karl.

Cast of Characters in 1955 Summer Stock Performances

Sir Robert Morton	Basil Rathbone
Desmond Curry	Kenneth Bowles/Bruce Adams/Jim Barnhill/Conrad Bain/James Paul/Harold J. Kennedy
Grace Winslow	Pamela Simpson
Dickie Winslow	Joseph Ponazecki/Jamo Blake/Ted Jordan/Don Garson/James Gildersleeve/Ronald Tomme/James Stevenson
John Watherstone	Gerald Reidengaugh/Tom Ratcliffe/Brad Olson/Robert Lansing/Dale Engle/Val Bettin/Taldo Kenyon
Ronnie Winslow	Pennell Rock
Violet	Shirley Fenner/Donna Dawson/Maggie Curran/Adele Thane/Norma Ransom/Dorothea Griffin
Arthur Winslow	Colin Keith-Johnston
Catherine Winslow	Sarah Burton

In the summer of 1955, Cynthia Rathbone, who was 16 at the time, accompanied her father on his summer stock tour, and worked as a backstage production assistant. Her job included helping with costumes, running errands, and walking Ginger, the Rathbone's red cocker spaniel, who was also traveling with Basil and Cynthia.

Beginning in June, the cast of the play consisted of four actors who traveled with Rathbone, and four local actors in each town where they performed. The four regulars were Pennell Rock (as the boy), Colin Keith-Johnston (as his father), Pamela Simpson (as his mother), and Sarah Burton (as his sister).

The local actors in Fayetteville, New York, were Kenneth Bowles, Gerry Reidengaugh, Joseph Ponazecki and Shirley Fenner. Settings by D. J. Fitz-Hugh.

"The Country Playhouse opened its seventh season last night with auguries good for a satisfying stand: The weather was pleasant, the play was Terrence Rattigan's Winslow Boy, and Basil Rathbone shined." —Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 28, 1955

At the Sea Cliff Summer Theatre, New York, the local actors were Donna Dawson, Jamo Blake, Tom Ratcliffe, and Bruce Adams. The play was staged by Basil Rathbone, the set designed by Cleon Throckmorton, production directed by George Mully, stage managed by Elizabeth Caldwell, and lighting by Bob Thiel.

"The Winslow Boy provides an enjoyable and stimulating evening in the theatre for all those who enjoy a good play, well cast and expertly acted." —The Farmingdale Post, July 6, 1955

Following the week at Sea Cliff, Rathbone headed to California to star in the TV spectacular "Svengali and the Blonde," which aired on NBC July 31. He then returned to the "Straw Hat Circuit," a.k.a. summer stock tour.

Rathbone and PLC Actors Get Ovation

Basil Rathbone and a cast of 10 talented amateur actors received prolonged applause Friday night when the curtain fell on Terrence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy, a feature of the fourth annual Music-Drama Festival at Pacific Lutheran College.

Rattigan's play, based on the alleged theft of a postal money order by a boy cadet at a British Naval College, was tailor-made to the talents of the suave Rathbone, who dominated the scene whenever he strode onto the stage and sniffed the air with his hawklike nose.

The famous Rathbone charm cane through in word and gesture. The withering look, the casual pinch of the nostrils, the word snapped off with Rathbonish resonance—all sent a thrill through the crowd.

Rathbone demonstrated his justifiably famous histrionic ability the first time he walked onto the stage as the great trial advocate, Sir Robert Morton. Alternating sneers with a caustic cross-examination of the accused boy, he had the Winslow family and, ay, perhaps even some in the audience, ready to throw him off the stage.

Then, the boy reduced to tears and the family to a noisy fury, Rathbone deftly turned the tables on the audience by remarking, "But of course, the boy is obviously innocent." ...

While Rathbone was plainly the darling of the packed house and could do no wrong, the collegians held up their end with surprisingly professional performances. ...

Rathbone heaped lavish praise on the cast during the curtain call, remarking that if ever again he is called upon to perform with collegiate actors he will measure them by the standard set by those at Pacific Lutheran College.

—Don Duncan, The News Tribune, May 7, 1955

The Norwich production included the following local actors: Ted Jordan, Jim Barnhill, Brad Olson, Maggie Curran.

In Norwich, "The Winslow Boy is excellent summer theater fare. And often approaches Broadway's polished performance. Watching Rathbone perform is a gratifying sensation. He is magnificent as the cold, austere, but very human lawyer, who takes over the defense of the Winslow boy. He gives a masterful performance and is warmly received by the audience." —The Hartford Courant, August 3, 1955

At Marblehead, "Rathbone cuts a dashing figure in evening dress with full length opera coat and his gestures and mannerisms leave no doubt that he's a master craftsman." —The Daily Item, August 9, 1955

The local actors in the Marblehead cast were: Adele Thane, Don Garson, Robert Lansing, and Conrad Bain.

Of the performance at the Triple Cities Playhouse in Binghamton, New York, the Press and Sun Bulletin (August 16, 1955) wrote, "Mr. Rathbone is sound in a smooth and neat portrayal of the lawyer who is passionately interested in the Winslow case he is handling, but strives to hide his interest behind a suave and coldly logical repartee. In the relatively short span of time he is on stage, Mr. Rathbone succeeds in dominating the scene." The local cast included James Gildersleeve and Dale Engle. Setting by Burt Dexler.

Following the week in Binghamton, The Winslow Boy played for nearly two weeks at the Drury Lane Theater in Evergreen Park (the outskirts of Chicago). The local actors were Norma Ransom, Ronald Tomme, James Paul, and Val Bettin.

"Rathbone, as Sir Robert Morton, the celebrated advocate who takes up the cause of the Winslow boy, for reasons that are sometimes 'mysterious,' sometimes 'suspicious,' is a towering dynamic figure and 'forensic' genius in the role." —Sam Lesner, Chicago Daily News, August 26, 1955

At the end of the summer, the week of September 5, The Winslow Boy played at the Montclair Summer Theatre (Montclair, New Jersey). with the following local actors: James Stevenson, Harold J. Kennedy, Dorothea Griffin, Taldo Kenyon. Settings by Charles Baker.

"Rathbone makes the Rattigan lines, which are good even when read without benefit of stage setting, crackle and sparkle as he lives the part of the English barrister who devotes himself whole-heartedly to the cause of 14-year-old Ronnie Winslow. ... Rathbone's Sir Robert used every action to convey something across the stage. To pay the price of admission and watch Rathbone's pantomime would yield more to a young actor than a six-month drama course. His raised eyebrows, his use of his walking cane, his sudden glowering half-turn to silence another character and his tossing of his gloves into his hat to register annoyance: all these, and countless more, showed the polish of the master craftsman who has learned his trade and learned it well.." —The Montclair Times, September 8, 1955

In 1960 Basil Rathbone performed in The Winslow Boy at the Tenthouse Theatre in Highland Park, Illinois, from August 1-7. Gordon Davidson directed a cast that included Tom Smucker as the boy, Lew Prentiss and Rosemary Kelly as the parents, Gary Hagar as the older brother, Joanna Merlin as the suffragette sister, and Basil Rathbone as Sir Robert Morton.

Basil Rathbone Great in The Winslow Boy

Round or square, a good play is a good play, and if it's a dozen years old that doesn't make any difference either. The Winslow Boy, a moving and memorable drama on Broadway in the '40s, still is a warm and stirring show in arena style at Tenthouse. ... Based on a celebrated English legal fight of the Edwardian era, it may seem long ago and far away, but a little man fighting a just cause that seems lost is always topical, and Terrence Rattigan's play rings with the excitement of the underdog's brave stand. ...

Basil Rathbone stars magnificently as the coolly calculating counselor who blows the teapot tempest into a national uproar and finally forces the crown to surrender after a stormy session in the house of commons. He doesn't make his first appearance until the drama is an hour old, he isn't in sight too often thereafter, but when he icily browbeats the youngster into tears to test his innocence, or coldly describes the theatricality of his courtroom style, he commands the stage beautifully.

Rathbone has played this unusual but rewarding role before. He obviously likes it, and gives a performance that is dedicated, detailed, and delightful.

Almost every character in Rattigan's drama is well developed, and the Tenthouse troupe, nicely balanced, works with a consistency that makes a deserving play so fascinating a straw hat audience forgets there is supposed to be a "name" guest star.

—William Leonard, Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1960

Rathbone considered The Winslow Boy to be one of the great plays of his time, and believed it would live on to become a recognized classic.