The Deep Blue Sea is a 1955 British drama film directed by Anatole Litvak, produced by Alexander Korda’s London Films, and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox. Starring Vivien Leigh and Kenneth More, the film is adapted from Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play of the same name.
Set in a flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London, in 1952, the story follows Hester, a woman trapped in a passionless marriage with Sir William Collyer (Emlyn Williams), a High Court judge. Seeking the love she lacks, she leaves him for Freddie Page (Kenneth More), a younger and ardent former RAF pilot. When neighbours discover Hester after a failed suicide attempt, her turbulent affair and the collapse of her marriage come to light, exposing deep themes of loneliness, repressed passion, and the painful aftermath of war. Beneath the post-war civility, the story reveals profound loss and longing.
Unavailable on DVD, The Deep Blue Sea received a rare screening during the BFI’s Vivien Leigh Season in 2013. In November 2024, the film was also aired by Talking Pictures TV, marking its first broadcast in decades.
A TV performance of the film was made by the BBC in 1994, starring Penelope Wilton as Hester Collyer, Ian Holm as Sir William Collyer and Colin Firth as Freddie Page.
The film version was re-made in 2011 with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston.
IMDB Featured Review
"Another Fascinating Rattigan Woman"
Terrence Rattigan's play was a popular success in London, though not in the NY production that starred Margaret Sullavan. There were two revivals last year, one in London and one in NY, starring Blythe Danner. Although the movie is boxy and stagebound, it does preserve one of Rattigan's most entrancing creations, Hester Collyer (Vivien Leigh), a woman all at once rabid with latent sexual desire and without remorse or an ounce of self-pity for her choices. The performance more than meets the requirement that Hester should never be viewed as either sordid or immoral. Listen, this is the early 50s.
Rattigan's closest American playwright was William Inge. Like Inge, he favoured characters tormented with issues out of sexual repression and the price they paid for what society, then, viewed as their "sins". Like Inge, Rattigan was homosexual and often used his characters to illuminate his own dark closet.