Happy Is the Bride

Director Roy Boulting had a hand writing the screenplay for HAPPY IS THE BRIDE, off a play by Esther McCracken. I have long admired Boulting's economic and precise style. His films of the 1950s, in particular, reflect the stoic, quietly comic British approach to film-making at the time.

Director Boulting and the film benefit from the good looking leads - Ian Carmichael and Janette Scott - as the about to get married couple, who throw caution to the wind and spend the night before the wedding under the same roof, but not in the same bed. Both are adorably young and very classy, he in an aristocratic way, she in a middle class way, aspiting to upward mobility.

That said, the truly memorable parts in this film go to Terry-Thomas as the fastidious traffic copper (in my view one of his finest roles with an against type understated approach); Cecil Parker as about to be father of bride Scott; and John Le Mesurier as the groom's dad.

Though somewhat theatrical in parts, and in the dialogue, HAPPY holds up well nearly 70 years after release, with the self-effacing brand of humor that so set British cinema apart from the rest... before the more rambunctious CARRY ON style crept in, and changed British humor into something louder.

Good, professionally done cinematography. 8/10.