--- title: "Separate Tables" year: 1958 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/separate-tables" fi1m_score: 74 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-09-20T03:33:47.710746+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T03:34:03.117611+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Separate Tables (1958) Directed by Delbert Mann · 1h 38m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A dining room of English people not saying things, and two Americans saying all of them > Half of Delbert Mann’s Rattigan adaptation is as good as English screen acting of its period gets, with David Niven and Deborah Kerr at the centre. The other half is Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth being unhappy at each other, and it never fits. ## Synopsis Bournemouth, out of season. The Beauregard is a residential hotel whose guests eat dinner at separate tables and have done so for years. Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr) lives there under the eye of her mother (Gladys Cooper) and has struck up a nervous friendship with Major Angus Pollock (David Niven), who talks a great deal about his war. John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), an American who writes and drinks, is quietly engaged to the manageress, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). Then a new guest arrives: Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth), down from London, who was once John’s wife and says she is only passing through. Around them Miss Meacham (May Hallatt) studies racing form, Mr. Fowler (Felix Aylmer) waits for a former pupil who keeps not arriving, and two medical students, Charles (Rod Taylor) and Jean (Audrey Dalton), argue about whether to marry. ## Review Terence Rattigan wrote *Separate Tables* as two one-act plays set in the same Bournemouth hotel, and on the stage one pair of actors played both sets of lovers. Delbert Mann’s film, from a screenplay by Rattigan and John Gay, runs the two stories at once, in the same dining room, with four actors instead of two. It is decent carpentry and the joins do not always hold. Half of this film is as good as English screen acting of its period gets. The other half is Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth being unhappy at each other in a seaside lounge, and it never quite belongs in the building. The building is the point. Harry Horner’s Beauregard is a hotel nobody chose: a lounge of chintz and standard lamps, a dining room where each resident eats alone at a table that is theirs by right of years, a hall where the post is inspected before it is claimed. Charles Lang photographs it in black and white, wet windows and a low grey sea beyond, and keeps the camera mostly at seated height, so we are always one of the diners. Edith Head puts Kerr in cardigans that have given up and Hayworth in gowns that plainly came from somewhere else, and that one difference does more work than several pages of dialogue. Niven’s Major Pollock is the reason to watch. He is a man built out of anecdotes, Sandhurst and the desert and what the colonel said, and Niven lets us see the effort in every one: the small glance to check the story has landed, the laugh that arrives too soon. When the film puts him in trouble, and it does, he does not go to pieces; he gets smaller, which is far worse. Kerr’s Sibyl watches him with her hands. She twists a handkerchief, her cuffs, her own fingers, and when Gladys Cooper’s Mrs. Railton-Bell says her daughter’s name we felt our own shoulders go up. We disliked that woman with a heat that surprised us, and Cooper earns it. She is never loud, only certain, and certain is what a bully sounds like in a good hotel. Wendy Hiller’s Pat Cooper runs the place and holds the two halves together, a practical woman who has decided exactly how much she can afford to feel. Cathleen Nesbitt and May Hallatt, as the widow with her wireless and the woman with her racing form, are the chorus, and they make ten minutes of gossip over the crossword worth more than most of the plot. Felix Aylmer’s Mr. Fowler, still waiting for a pupil who does not come, has one telephone call that is close to unbearable. Then there is the table by the window. Lancaster, who also produced, plays John Malcolm as a large angry man with a drink problem and a past, and Hayworth’s Ann arrives to reopen it. Both are good actors and both are working hard, and the scenes still feel imported. Rattigan’s people say less than they mean; these two say everything, twice, at a volume the dining room was not built for. Hayworth has her moments, mostly when she is silent and Lang holds on her face longer than the script needs, but the writing hands her a woman to explain rather than a woman to be. Mann directs it the way you would direct the play: put good actors on one set and let that set be the whole world. Reviewers at the time called it stagey, and it is. Three editors are credited, and the film mostly cuts on the ends of speeches, as a stage manager would. David Raksin’s score is best when it stays out; the big string cue under the lovers’ quarrel tells us what Lancaster’s face had already said. The second half turns on something the morning paper brings into the lounge, and we will not say what, except that what follows is the film’s best quarter of an hour and belongs almost entirely to the English tables. It runs 98 minutes and asks for nothing more than attention. See it for Niven, for Kerr, for Hiller and Cooper. When Lancaster and Hayworth are on, you may find yourself doing what the residents do, and watching the far side of the dining room. *Fi1m score 74, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say With only 3 reviews in so far, the lean is warm but not settled. Two of the three admire the way Terence Rattigan’s two one-act plays have been stitched into a single character study of lonely hotel residents, and the praise clusters on the cast: David Niven’s disgraced major and Deborah Kerr’s timid spinster are the performances most often singled out, with Wendy Hiller, Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth noted in support. The dissent comes from The New Yorker, which finds the film static, closer to a photographed play than to cinema, while still calling it well made and conceding the cast lifts thin material. ### Reviews we read (3) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): The film successfully blends Terence Rattigan's two one-act plays into a literate, absorbing character study of lonely residents at a Bournemouth hotel. Strong performances are singled out, especially David Niven as the phony major and Deborah Kerr as the timid spinster. [Read](https://variety.com/1957/film/reviews/separate-tables-2-1117794749/) - **Radio Times**, Tom Hutchinson (4/5): David Niven's Oscar-winning performance as the disgraced major anchors this adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play, with strong support from the ensemble cast including Wendy Hiller, Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth. Minor flaws in some performances aside, Delbert Mann's direction makes the film both moving and entertaining. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-1x9n4a/separate-tables/) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (50/100, inferred): The adaptation is static and more a photographic reproduction of the play than a true film, yet it remains well-made and interesting. The critic notes the glum atmosphere of insecure and lonely characters while praising the cast's ability to make the two-dimensional portrayal work. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1959/01/03/diners-club) ## Details - **Director:** Delbert Mann - **Director:** Delbert Mann - **Screenplay:** Terence Rattigan, John Gay - **Cinematography:** Charles Lang - **Editor:** Marjorie Fowler, Charles Ennis, George Boemler - **Music:** David Raksin - **Production design:** Harry Horner - **Costume design:** Edith Head - **Producer:** Harold Hecht, Burt Lancaster, James Hill - **Cast:** Deborah Kerr as Sibyl Railton-Bell; Rita Hayworth as Ann Shankland; David Niven as Angus Pollock; Wendy Hiller as Pat Cooper; Burt Lancaster as John Malcolm; Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Railton-Bell; Cathleen Nesbitt as Gladys Matheson; Felix Aylmer as Mr. Fowler - **Runtime:** 1h 38m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 18 December 1958 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Apple TV: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, sd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AE, AR, AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HU, ID, IE, IL, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1959: Best Actress (nominated); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (nominated); Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Actor (won); Best Supporting Actress (won) ## If you liked this - *Brief Encounter* (1945), Fi1m 90: Another English love affair conducted almost entirely through what is not said. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/brief-encounter.md) - *The Browning Version* (1951): Rattigan again, Michael Redgrave as a failed schoolmaster, and quieter cruelty than this. - *Marty* (1955): Lonely people, small rooms, a Bronx dance hall, and no Hollywood stars in the way. - *Tokyo Story* (1953), Fi1m 92: Old people made to feel like furniture, filmed at seated height, with devastating patience. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tokyo-story.md) - *The Deep Blue Sea* (2011): Terence Davies films Rattigan’s other great play as a bruise in shades of brown. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/separate-tables