The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

Stuart's Nite
First movie out of the giant boxed Janus set.

Wilde biography via Official Oscar Wilde site:

In December 1881, Oscar sailed for New York to travel across the United States and deliver a series of lectures on aesthetics. The 50-lecture tour was originally scheduled to last four months, but stretched to nearly a year, with over 140 lectures given in 260 days. In between lectures he made time to meet with Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman. He also arranged for his play, “Vera,” to be staged in New York the following year. When he returned from America, Oscar spent three months in Paris writing a blank-verse tragedy that had been commissioned by the actress Mary Anderson. When he sent it to her, however, she turned it down. He then set off on a lecture tour of Britain and Ireland.

On May 29, 1884, Oscar married Constance Lloyd. Constance was four years younger than Oscar and the daughter of a prominent barrister who died when she was 16. She was well-read, spoke several European languages and had an outspoken, independent mind. Oscar and Constance had two sons in quick succession, Cyril in 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886. With a family to support, Oscar accepted a job revitalizing the Woman's World magazine, where he worked from 1887-1889. The next six years were to become the most creative period of his life. He published two collections of children's stories, “The Happy Prince and Other Tales” (1888), and “The House of Pomegranates” (1892). His first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in an American magazine in 1890 to a storm of critical protest. He expanded the story and had it published in book form the following year. Its implied homoerotic theme was considered very immoral by the Victorians and played a considerable part in his later legal trials. Oscar's first play, “Lady Windermere's Fan,” opened in February 1892. Its financial and critical success prompted him to continue to write for the theater. His subsequent plays included “A Woman of No Importance” (1893), “An Ideal Husband” (1895), and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895). These plays were all highly acclaimed and firmly established Oscar as a playwright.

For more on Joan Greenwood, see the Movienite posts on Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Man in the White Suit (1951).

Amazing connection via ScreenOnline:

The last and most popular of his social comedies, Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnes opened at London's St James' theatre on Valentine's Day 1895. Its initial run, however, was cut short by Wilde's prosecution for immorality, which ironically was brought by one of his social acquaintances of the time, the then Home Secretary (and later Prime Minister)Herbert Asquith. In a somewhat bizarre turn, Asquith's son Anthony eventually made the first film version.

Geoffrey Macnab on the neglected Anthony Asquith via Guardian Unlimited:

"Puffin" (as his mother nicknamed him, because of his bird-like profile) is one of the most exotic and eccentric characters in British film history. A tiny figure with a fay and gentle manner, he was famous for wearing a blue boiler suit on set, and for sitting cross-legged beneath the camera during shooting. "He dressed like one of the electricians. If anything, he was less well groomed," actress Wendy Hiller recalled of him. Despite his aristocratic background, he was the first British director to join a trade union, serving for 30 years as president of industry body the Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians (ACTT). In the process, he helped improve pay and conditions for workers, and played a key role in the battle to prevent the government closing down film production during the second world war. "He was a unique and indispensable figure in the British cinema," observed Harold Wilson after Asquith's death in 1968.

Actors and technicians revered Asquith. "He was delightful, charming as a man. To me, he was the best director I have ever worked with," says Jean Kent, one of the leading British stars of the 1940s, who made three films with him. Otto Plaschke, second assistant director on his 1958 feature, Orders to Kill, agrees: "Everybody adored Puffin. He was the most enchanting man." While making The Way to the Stars, Asquith struck up one of the more unlikely friendships of his life with Joe Jones, owner of a transport cafe in Catterick, who subsequently employed him as a dishwasher and waiter. "He used to serve the lorry drivers at breakfast time," Jonathan Cecil says. "They [Joe's family] were a kind of surrogate family to him. Joe helped Puffin to kick the alcohol."

Between his stints at Joe's cafe, Asquith was making films such as The Importance of Being Earnest and The Winslow Boy. He was also trying to curb his drinking at a notoriously tough "drying-out" clinic. Even here, Cecil recalls, his trademark courtesy did not desert him. "They'd bring him a bowl of whisky with vinegar in it so it would make him nauseous. They had all these fighting drunks, cursing and being held down, and they'd bring this bowl of revolting muck for him to drink and he'd say, 'Oh, my dear ... that's so kind.' "

By making adaptations of Rattigan, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw plays, Asquith ensured that he would be pigeonholed as a purveyor of tasteful, middlebrow fare. The influential critic Raymond Durgnat coined the phrase "Rattigasquith" to dismiss these literary adaptations.

In their own unfussy way, Asquith's best movies are superbly crafted. The Importance of Being Earnest, for example, works so well precisely because he doesn't try to open up the material for the screen. Calling it "an artificial comedy of the theatre", he celebrates rather than disguises its stage origins. He also elicits exemplary performances from Margaret Rutherford (to whom he once fed whiskey to calm her nerves), Redgrave and others. "He had a marvelous way of coaxing what he wanted out of you," Jean Kent says. She, at least, is convinced that he is woefully undervalued. "I don't think he was ever given his due ... not that his reputation ever mattered to him."