Bed and Breakfast

This film was shown last night at the BFI Southbank as part of the BFIs 75th anniversary of the founding of the NFTVA.It was originally thought lost but has been found in a vault belonging to the Rank organisation.It is a farce which was much in vogue at the time it was made.The main proponents being the Aldwych farceurs.Many of them were set in large houses for a number of practical reasons.For one it meant that they only had to worry about one main set particularly since placement of microphones was often a problem.In fact the poor recording is in evidence many times.If anyone shuts a door,falls down or comes downstairs too heavily it sounds as if someone has just caused an explosion.The actors tend to be photographed in large groups with little cutting again due to the fact that it was difficult to edit film in those early days of sound.The fact that this is an early talkie is also highlighted by the fact that the word "Synchronised" appears on the BBFC certificate(not the title card).Also at the end of the film the legend states that this is a "Gaumont Talking Picture".with the disappearance of silent films both of these descriptors of the type of film soon disappeared.This film has a limited amount of entertainment value but its historical interest far outweighs this in any event.That is not to say that it does not have its funny moments.The police arrive and arrest the vicar as a potential burglar.His wife says to the policeman"My husband is a pillar of the community",to which the policeman replies "Yes and tomorrow he will be a column in the News Of The World"(to anyone outside the UK this is a Sunday paper devoted to scandal).I enjoyed it and so did most of the audience.

Watching this film is, I suspect, something like attending the performance of an elderly farce by a terribly enthusiastic cast -- with the added features of booming recorded voices, clattering sound-stage footsteps and background camera hum -- and I have to say that I can envision it going down like a lead balloon on DVD...

However in its native habitat, namely a crowded cinema auditorium with a cheerfully-disposed audience, it is quite tolerable fun, although this genre of film isn't really my cup of tea at the best of times; it does have its moments, but I wouldn't say that "Bed and Breakfast" was worth going out of your way to see.

The film is fairly stagy and relies largely on stock situations and characters -- the orotund (and rotund) clergyman and his prim and proper wife, the garrulous bookie and his vulgar Missus, the drunken Scot, the ineffective tail-coated twit and the suspicious husband, not to mention the crooks who cry "It's a fair cop, guv'nor" and tote a bag of swag. The main motor of the comedy is the desire of the unmarried couple to avoid committing technical adultery by being forced to share a bedroom, a former favourite farce plot-line which has rather lost its stimulating hint of naughtiness over the elapsed years; shorn of that titillation, we are left with the mechanics of the various convolutions the characters get themselves into in quest of this end, some of which are more entertaining than others.

Characterisation beyond the stock types is threadbare and motivation tends to be a bit arbitrary -- for instance, Audrey's sudden capitulation into believing her husband at the end, on no more basis than her former wild suspicions -- with the result that I really didn't care about any of the characters at all; I don't imagine that we were supposed to. As a result, the plot becomes an entirely mechanical set of evolutions and improbable happenings, feminine shrieks and bedtime insinuations; it's not always unfunny but it is too much to expect any degree of emotional payback, and I always find this unsatisfactory.

So far as the technical quality of this new print goes, visual material is good, presumably thanks to being sourced from original negatives, but it's clear, as I hinted above, that this is sound recording in its infancy: indeed, the title card proudly boasts that this is a "Synchronised", i.e. talking picture! Audiences presumably responded to the sheer novelty of hearing their wisecracks on screen (director Walter Forde remembered that this picture used to go down very well in the cinemas at the time).

An interesting historical novelty, but this one I didn't warm to.