Intimate Relations

This is an entertaining and interesting comedy musical made at Highbury Studios in 1937.Highbury Studios would become famous as the home of the Rank charm school in the 1940s.The film features talented June Clyde and an brilliant Garry Marsh.Moore Marriott plays Clydes father ,for once playing his own age.There are three charming musical numbers.The second one of exceptional interest as it features Lew Stone who was one of the top British bandleaders in the thirties.The only real minus is Jack Hobbs who plays the lead.Sadly not the more famous namesake,the English test cricketer.This Hobbs is truly awful.The script is not great,but the performances,Hobbs apart,carries it off.

This opens with a lavish stage musical number, Lew Stone's catchy 'Castles in the Air' sung by the vivacious June Clyde. It's a highlight of a film that would have fallen foul of the prudish Hays code had it crossed the Atlantic.

Clyde's being hotly pursued by Garry Marsh, a wealthy philanderer, whilst his like-minded wife is going flat out to get her clutches on his business partner Freddie. The terrified, inexperienced Freddie affects a relationship with Clyde, that turns into a real romance. The weakness of this is, as played by Jack Hobbs, Freddie is such an effete ninny it's hard to see why either woman would be interested in him. It's all fairly predictable, including Clyde's boozy father, Moore Marriott, getting the butler drunk - an almost obligatory scene in such comedies from this era. Ending somewhat abruptly, at not long over an hour, the best feature is the sparkling performance from the now forgotten June Clyde.