Cinema: Grounded Bird

Georgy Girl spells out the tragicomic misadventures of another forlorn young creature whose dealings with men often take a businesslike turn for the worse. She is only a butler’s daughter, but James Mason, as master of the house, has a handsome proposition for her. “I want you to be my mistress,” he says, as he hands her a written contract spelling out magnanimous terms. Squinting at the fine print, Georgy wonders aloud: “Will we have to have shareholders and things?”

This eccentric English comedy, all tea-cozy quirks and idiosyncrasy like a thousand others, boasts one sterling asset in Georgy herself, played by 23-year-old Lynn Redgrave, daughter of Sir Michael and sister of Vanessa. Tackling a made-to-measure role, Actress Redgrave shows that she has inherited a fair share of the family talent along with the lack-looks of a backstairs maid. As Georgy she is dumpy, vaguely prognathous, warm and plain as a suet pudding. Her figure is so nondescript that she paws through heaps of female finery with the defeatist air of a girl attempting to dress up an old packing crate as a Louis XV commode.

In the London slums where she shares a flat with a sluttish violinist, Georgy discovers that sex is mostly a spectator sport. “You just missed being beautiful,” mocks her roommate’s modcap beau (Alan Bates). When the violinist gets pregnant, the mod marries her, and Georgy sticks around to cook, clean, clown, care for the baby, and light the slow-burning fires of infidelity. The emergence of Georgy is essentially a souped-up Cinderella tale, sometimes preposterous, always sentimental, but occasionally human and hilarious too. Plumpish birds who nest alone on Saturday nights will cherish its pathos, and others will respect its piercingly candid glimpses of a plain girl’s lot.