Love's a Luxury

Theatrical producer Hugh Wakefield and his star Derek Bond motor up to a country house Wakefield has rented for a month. Wakefield meant to take wife Helen Shingler, but when actress Zena Marshall was spotted leaving their flat, she decided Wakefield was carrying on an affair. Wakefield hopes to mend matters with his wife and for a quiet month. But then there wouldn't be any comedy, and Bond wouldn't have to spend half the movie dressed like Charley's Aunt.

It's based on a London show by Edward Hole and Guy Paxton, and it shows. Director Francis Searle has opened it from a one-set farce for only five of its 85 minutes, and even those scenes could have been covered in the main set, or simply referenced in dialogue. I was not terribly impressed. It's filled with smart women and foolish men, with Bill Shine playing a Richard Haydn sort of character in a scout uniform who wanders in asking for an egg and winds up annoying everyone, including me. Wakefield speaks his lines as if he was in the stage production and has toned it down only minimally. As a result of the rather standard post-war British farce syndrome, there's only one amusing scene, in which Wakefield and Bond convince Shine there are spies about. It wasn't enough to make this more than watchable.

British cinema of the 1950s was characterised by its utilisation of stage farces.Some ,such as "Watch It Sailor" with the great Peggy Mount are memorably funny.This on the other hand limps along from scene to scene and is memorably unfunny.Mind you someone must like it,otherwise how did it achieve such a high mark?The problem is that characters having bluffed themselves out of one situation then find that they have to bluff themselves into another.Frenetic behaviour is mistaken for comedy.Furthermore it is rather too long for its own good and outstays its welcome.Maybe on the stage it raised a titter or two in its time but here it just looks like yesterdays stale leftovers.

I saw that some people did not care for this film and though I had not seen the earlier one or the play, I just loved it!

The more I watched the funnier it got! I think that all of the cast were well-chosen and all the mix-ups were so funny! I just love the Scoutmaster and the misunderstandings that arose from the caretaker's daughter being so beautiful. . I usually prefer film noir, but ordered this one, as some of my favorites are in it. I did think Miss Shingler and Derek Bond and Hugh Wakefield as well as Patricia Raine .....etc. were very good. The Scoutmaster's actions are so funny! He runs after one of the ladies that is not pursuing him! I did figure that Derek Bond's character and the antics of masquerading as a woman lead to more problems! I will see if I can get the original film. Just wanted to mention that I really enjoyed the adventure!

JLC

Here is a film that has been assembled upon quite a promising substructure: an English-made comedy set at a remote West Country estate populated by clever theatrical types who must cope with such plot devices as marital infidelity and young love. Situations involving mistaken identity and impersonation are abundant. Yet, at the conclusion of the sorry affair, a viewer will find it a formidable task to fathom quite what the creators of the piece believed that they were after achieving. Charles Pentwick (Hugh Wakefield), a London based theatre "impresario", has decamped to Cranberry Cottage, an isolated and, hopefully for Charles, serene rural abode, accompanied by a principal actor from his stable, Bobby Bentley (Derek Bond), attempting thereby to recover from the shock of his wife Margaret (Helen Shingler) having left him because of her mistaken presumption that her husband has been inconstant with an enticing young actress, Fritzi (Zena Marshall). However, his sojourn will not be untroubled, as a flock of friends, family members, and others, drop in, where their consistently foolish behaviour is utilized for the amusement of themselves, although few audiences will appreciate it at all. This is a leaden essay at comedy, sunk by a logic divested script and sluggish direction, its assembled characters including such as a crossdressing Bentley of the silliest type that one may imagine, an "ex" scoutmaster whose shameless gaucherie is disconcerting to watch, and a supposedly vampish Fritzi, encumbered by a Gallic seasoned accent that she apparently cannot avoid replacing with a standard English inflection throughout her performance. Following an estimable first effort with A GIRL IN A MILLION (1946), director Francis Searle's work declined notably, as evidenced by this less than acceptable endeavour at humour. The lead, Wakefield, co-scripts and it is plain that he should have reconsidered such an adventure before it began, as the screenplay is simply awful and not an improvement over what is a lacklustre original play. The cast generally seems to be discomfited by a series of scenes marked with deplorably unfunny lines, abetted through inept stabs at physical comedy and an obvious collective lack of enthusiasm for this flaccid fiasco that must have been excruciating to perform. Even the striking and able Shingler, totally wasted here, is markedly abashed while she walks through her role.