Derby Day

This was the last of one of the most successful series of films in British cinemas history.By the time they made this film both Be able and Wilding were a bit long in the tooth.They were given the least uninteresting and most maudlin of the stories in this portmanteau film.Withers and Mccallum seem to be reprising past roles.Gordon Harker and Gladys Henson play a comment cab driver and his wife going to the Derby for the first time.A film star is won in a raffle and accompanies a French girl.There are a lot of jokes about the film industry.The film is very old fashioned and some of the attitudes are wince inducing.However over all it is still fairly entertaining.

I watched this the other night for the first time i think, it is the last film in the Michael Wilding/Anna Neagle pairings which is the primary reason i watched it, though another Brit 1940's film couple Googie Withers and her husband John McCallum also appeared, who i also like. Derby Day is the weakest of the Neagle/Wilding films which oddly doesn't capitalise on their chemistry and casts them in sorrowful mood; there is no kiss even, let alone any singing and dancing duet-ting. Withers and McCallum have the more interesting duo plot to play I think. There is some nicely done Brit comic character supporting roles, but overall Derby Day doesn't really click or come together. It is too fragmented and moves around so much between the different stories that you never get really into anyone of them. It is a bit of a swansong film to a different earlier type of film making. Neagle is lovingly photgraphed but both her and Googie Withers seem a little old for the parts they are playing. It's hard not to flinch a little at the blatant class differences on show but then the film's over 50 years old.

A British drama; A story about people mingling on the day of Britain's richest and most prestigious flat horse race meeting at Epsom Downs. This is an absorbing ensemble piece about the fates of a French maid, a murderer, and an aristocrat, and how their personal stories interconnect. The cultural backdrop and rituals of the British class system cleverly blend for dramatic and comic effect. How they all end up is what keeps it going, how lives are transformed and the friendships made. But its appeal rests firmly with its star players, Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding, who have a splendid chemistry. There is good support from Googie Withers.

An almost anthology film about a set of characters as they navigate towards and win during a derby. One set, is about a young help who went in as a replacement of her injured boss and meet a semi-famous actor, two elderly bettors and a lover trying to outrun the crime they did.

A noteworthy film that blends multiple genres into one sweeping working film AND clocking below 90 mins too. The acting was just enough to fill the gaps but the main plot about the maid and the semi-famous actor was delightfully done. The other main subplot about the murder is a a bit lackluster but provides enough spice for the film to be more than your everyday fluff.

Overall, a noteworthy film.

Derby Day tells the story of several people, a section of cross- Britainnia who are going to the Epsom Derby. At some point in the film all their lives intersect on Derby Day.

Anna Neagle is a recent aristocratic widow who has a horse in the race. She runs into Michael Wilding, a newspaper cartoonist who also lost a fiancé in the same airplane crash Neagle's husband was in. Two others have a dark secret. Googie Withers and John McCallum murdered even if by accident Withers husband and they're at Epsom Downs for him to make a connection to beat it out of the country.

Gordon Harker is a cabdriver who takes Wilding to the Derby and they stop to pick up Harker's wife Gladys Henson. They're a delightful working class couple who take joy in the simple pleasures.

My favorite is Peter Graves who is a British film star, but not of the A list. He's won by French maid Suzanne Cloutier as second prize in a studio contest. My favorite scene in the film is Graves with Wilding who's not a cinema goer, but knows Graves from military service. Graves is highly annoyed that Wilding does not recognize his celebrity.

All in all the stories both dark and light are mixed well together and it's a nice ensemble cast that delivers a good ensemble performance in Derby Day.