A poet takes over the management of a rural pub.
Poet's Pub is a pleasant, breezy little film that has long been forgotten - and probably for good reason. There's a slightness to it that makes the average Ealing Comedy look like an Ingmar Bergman film in comparison. Derek Bond plays the poet - recent Oxford Blue, poet, ex-soldier and all-round good egg. He gets the job because he complains about the place to the landlord and the new owner, Fabia Drake, just offers it to him. His only qualification appears to be that he is as posh as she is. Within five minutes the place is a roaring success, thanks presumably to the natural managerial skills of the naturally posh.
So with little or no drama coming from the pub's transformation, where's the plot going to spring from? Well, there's an Elizabethan glove rumoured to be somewhere on the premises which some of the guests are looking for. Plus love interest Rona Anderson has a fearsome father in the shape of James Robertson Justice - who also happens to be a poetry critic. And surprisingly-posh maid Barbara Murray's up to something too. But none of this really amounts to much.
Though it doesn't have a top-notch cast, there are several players who are always welcome, but they aren't given anything much to do. James Robertson Justice shouts a lot, Leslie Dwyer does his cockney barman thing and Joyce Grenfell is at her most gallumphing.
The script aims at a gentle whimsy but there are a few elements that jar. Anderson and Murray are both pawed at more than is strictly seemly. And when Anderson is taken hostage she is threatened with having acid thrown in her face. It all feels misjudged. Somewhere there's a script editor who didn't earn their money.
The critics at the time weren't keen, and the film has since sunk without trace, but it's short enough to be worth a passing look if you have a spare afternoon.
Script adapt.: Diana Morgan. (o.a. Eric Linklater)
Director: Frederick Wilson
Players: Derek Bond, Rona Anderson, James Robertson Justice, Peter Croft, Leslie Dwyer, John McLaren, Barbara Murray, Joyce Grenfell, Fabia Drake, Iris Hoey, Andrew Osborn, Kay Cavendish, Maurice Denham, Leslie Weston, Geoffrey Dunn, Roddy Hughes, Philip Stainton, Joan Sterndale-Bennett, Alexander Field, Sam Kydd, Dorothy Green, Ann Codrington, Olwen Brookes, Arthur Lowe, Mona Harris, Anthony Steel, Patricia Hayes
Realistic, down-beat portrayal of life on the docks. There's a thin plot about smuggled diamonds but it's the background of trams and pubs and a vanished way of life that now excites most interest. That, and British cinema's first black/white romance between Earl Cameron and Susan Shaw.
Script: Jack Whittingham, John Eldridge
Director: Basil Dearden
Players: Bonar Colleano, Renee Asherson, Moira Lister, Max Adrian, Joan Dowling, James Robertson Justice, Michael Golden, John Longden, Alfie Bass, Leslie Phillips, Laurence Naismith, Victor Maddern, Sam Kydd, Michael Ward
Clare (Margaret Johnston) tries to put her granddaughter off an unsuitable match by telling her of the three men she married. Not very exciting by all accounts.
Script adapt.: Leslie Landau, Adrian Arlington. (o.a. Francis Brett Young)
Director: Lance Comfort
Players: Ronald Howard, Robin Bailey, Richard Todd, Mary Clare, Marjorie Fielding
A man listening to Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor dreams he is buried alive.
Spooky silent adaptation of Poe's Premature Burial designed to run with the Prelude as accompaniment.
Script adapt.: Castleton Knight (o.a. Edgar Allan Poe)
Director: Castleton Knight
Player: Castleton Knight
Kathleen Byron (the mad nun in Black Narcissus) drives a young musical prodigy to the brink of suicide.
Script adapt.: Robert Westerby. (o.a. Aldous Huxley)
Director: Fergus McDonell
Players: Guy Rolfe, Jeremy Spencer, Kathleen Ryan, James Robertson Justice, Henry Oscar, Rosalie Crutchley, John Slater, Christopher Lee
A young designer is romantically torn between her old boss and his younger chemist.
Deadly dull posh melodrama. Even Roger Livesey can't save this one.
Script adapt.: Basil Mason, George Dewhurst (o.a. Lionel Brown)
Director: Reginald Denham
Players: Mary Newland, Roger Livesey, Mary Jerrold, Robert Rendel, Eric Cowley, Ann Codrington, Ivor Barnard, Cicely Oates
Disraeli biopic. An unpromising tale is presented as a patriotic morale booster. It doesn't work.
Script: Brock Williams, Michael Hogan
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Players: John Gielgud, Diana Wynyard, Stephen Murray, Owen Nares, Fay Compton, Will Fyffe, Lyn Harding, Pamela Standish, Leslie Perrins, Vera Bogetti, Anthony Ireland, Irene Browne, Frederick Leister, Nicholas Hannen, Kynaston Reeves, Barbara Everest, Gordon McLeod, Glynis Johns, Margaret Johnston
Marilyn Monroe's arrival on these shores to make this film was a huge event. The pairing of her and Laurence Olivier was a publicist's dream. Pity they chose to do this rickety Terence Rattigan play. It's hard not to find the film disappointing even after all this time. It needed a Lubitch or a Wilder at the helm to make this soufflé rise, it got Olivier. Still, Monroe looks fabulous and happy - and that's enough.
Script adapt.: (o.a.) Terence Rattigan
Director: Laurence Olivier, Anthony Bushell
Players: Sybil Thorndike, Richard Wattis, Jean Kent, Jeremy Spencer, Esmond Knight, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Rosamund Greenwood
Somewhere in Europe, a beautiful princess is wakened by the sound of gunfire. Yes, it's the revolution and there's scarcely time for a song before she has to flee to a neighbouring country where the king, her betrothed, awaits. Two problems: the revolutionaries won't allow any citizen to leave, and she's not that keen on the elderly king. The first is solved by a hasty, unconsummated marriage to the naval officer the king has sent to escort her, but this just makes the second problem more acute.
Whatever the name of the countries involved, we're firmly in the Land of Operetta and its English princess was Evelyn Laye. Princess Charming is probably the best of the attempts to translate her charm to the screen, at least for those who find Evensong too po-faced. It looks expensive and the songs are pleasant though unmemorable. Laye, and the rest of the cast, are in good form and it's only the uninspired script that prevents it being a classic of the genre.
For those who aren't into light opera, the chief appeal lies in the performance of Max Miller as the Insurance agent whose company has underwritten the royal marriage and who is determined to ensure its successful completion. Shorn of his saucy humour by the censors and his trademark loud suits by the demands of the plot, he still puts in an energetic turn.
Miller's outshone by the pairing of George Grossmith and Yvonne Arnaud as the king and his comfy mistress. As the handsome sailor, Henry Wilcoxon is less successful unless you're really into grumpy-looking blokes. The Mr Darcy thing only works if you get to see behind the glum facade, and you never do here. However, since Laye's choice is him or Grossmith, I suppose she takes the right decision. Hollywood knew better how to show off Mr Wilcoxon's charms: get him in a toga and as close to naked as the censors will allow.
Princess Charming can't compete with the best of the Hollywood or German operettas because it lacks the sexual spice that keeps the saccharine at bay, but it passes the time nicely enough. However, its old-fashioned charms couldn't compete at the box office with the up-to-the-minute sassiness of Laye's rival Jessie Matthews' Evergreen which opened at the same time.
Script: L duGarde Peach, Arthur Wimperis, Laurie Wylie
Director: Maurice Elvey
Players: Finlay Currie, Ivor McLaren, Ivor Barnard, Francis L. Sullivan, Dino Galvani
In an Eastern European country a cardinal is arrested for crimes against the state. The battle is on to break his spirit before his trial begins.
Based on the case of Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary, Bridget Boland's play was adapted for the screen to great acclaim yet now it is virtually forgotten. This is strange because stars Alec Guinness, as the cardinal, and Jack Hawkins, as his interrogator were at the height of their careers.
Maybe it's the downbeat subject matter - dour dramas about life under Communism aren't the sort of things that show up regularly on Saturday afternoon telly. Maybe it's that debuting director Peter Glenville just doesn't have the caché that some of his contemporaries have. Maybe for all its serious intent, The Prisoner is really just an outsider's look at the subject matter - it can't hold a candle to some of the films that came out of Eastern Europe later when the system relaxed.
Whatever the reason, The Prisoner has disappeared off the radar. Yet there is a lot worth appreciating here. Chief of the pleasures is the cast, all of whom pull their weight. Naturally the leads do well, but the supporting players also give their all, particularly Wilfrid Lawson as the genial gaoler and Kenneth Griffith as Hawkins' creepy aide.
If you're a lover of serious drama, or just want to enjoy star acting, then it's well worth seeking out The Prisoner.
Script adapt.: (o.a.) Bridget Boland
Director: Peter Glenville
Players: Raymond Huntley, Jeanette Scott, Ronald Lewis, Mark Dignam, Gerard Heinz, Richard Leech
