I was trying to remember, during the first half of the review, why Robert Donat’s name rang a bell; Andrew watched The Thirty-Nine Steps a while back and I was curious enough about the lead to look him up.
I also saw him first in The Thirty-Nine Steps! I have since seen him in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), The Citadel (1938), and Perfect Strangers (1945). He's been good in all of them, but I really loved him here.
I think his wikipedia article mentions that he was almost dropped from Knight Without Armour when his chronic ill-health delayed filming, but that Dietrich threatened to quit if the producers threw her co-star under the bus. Good for her.
Agreed!
(My personal favorite fun fact about Robert Donat: like Leslie Howard with whom he was often classed as a romantic hero, he came at his quintessential Englishness from a slight angle; his father was a Polish immigrant, hence the last name. I think a lot of quintessential people come from the edges. It looks very different if you just inherit a thing without thinking about it.)
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I also saw him first in The Thirty-Nine Steps! I have since seen him in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), The Citadel (1938), and Perfect Strangers (1945). He's been good in all of them, but I really loved him here.
I think his wikipedia article mentions that he was almost dropped from Knight Without Armour when his chronic ill-health delayed filming, but that Dietrich threatened to quit if the producers threw her co-star under the bus. Good for her.
Agreed!
(My personal favorite fun fact about Robert Donat: like Leslie Howard with whom he was often classed as a romantic hero, he came at his quintessential Englishness from a slight angle; his father was a Polish immigrant, hence the last name. I think a lot of quintessential people come from the edges. It looks very different if you just inherit a thing without thinking about it.)