Stop Press Girl

On the outside, Jennifer appears to be a normal girl. However, she has a special power which is so far unknown to her, it's hereditary and passed down through the females of the family: the power to stop ALL machinery. It takes 15 minutes to do so, and does not work if she is asleep, those are the only 'rules'. Now this doesn't affect her so much as she lives in a sleepy little town that is still all horse and cart, but her boyfriend is a watch maker who owns a car, so there's some problems there (that just seem odd coincidences since neither of them know), but when Jennifer goes away to London, that's when the real fun starts!

A lovely little English screwball comedy, and see if you recognise Jennifer as Truly Scrumptious from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' - 20 years younger. 10/10!

This searing kitchensink drama exposes the harsh dark, underbelly of postwar Britain.

No I was just pulling your leg, this lightweight but amusing romantic comedy has a newspaper reporter involved with a woman that is cursed with an affliction – she stops all forms of mechanical machinery and is capable of telling the time without the aid of a clock. Henceforth she may be not all that marriageable for a newspaper man.

A set of rural English characters make up this whimsical film, the type of gentle B-grade farce that Britain used to be known for making before the 'orrible 60s and 70s.

There are some priceless hilarious moments in this ambiguous comedy about a young innocent girl who happens to have a disastrous influence on any kind of machinery. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne in a number of supporting roles play an important part in adding to the comedy. The idea is actually rather serious: who has not experienced the frustration when for instance a computer just will not cooperate? And you must suspect that somehow your second thoughts could have had some influence on the inexplicable problem, which no mechanic expertise can solve. When science stands powerless and logic doesn't work, there is always superstition. The most wonderful scene in this boosting of the problem is the cinema scene, both on screen, in the audience and in the projector room (with Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne). The idea is good and made the best of, and there are plenty of hearty laughs. James Robertson Justice as an implacable dentist and Gordon Jackson as rhe incorrigible journalist add to the entertainment while Sally Ann Howe's perfect innocence is the centerpiece.

I need to comment on myriamlenys' review: The opening scenes were filmed in Finchingfield, a village near here. I have lived most of my 75 years in the area and can assure you that so soon after the war things were very run down and backward. It would be surprising if there were more than two cars in the area (e.g. local doctor), very few tractors (still horses), few radios and certainly no TV; a bus perhaps once a week, few strangers. The village is now a tourist honeypot and people even have mobile phones, which would not have lasted long with Jennifer around!

Set in the sleepy little village of Slipford, "a village bypassed by progress", and described by the late David Shipman as "so silly it was not released". The use of the much-vaunted Dynamic Frame process makes this extraordinary folly look simultaneously cheap & amateurish and yet also rather avant-garde in the style of Karel Zeman's animated fantasies of the fifties and sixties.

And it's impossible not to like a film in which Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne keep popping up in cameo roles as 'The Mechanical Types'.