Bikini Baby

It is difficult to believe that with the talent both behind and in front of the camera that this film could be such a misfire.It clearly attempts to be a satire on beauty competitions and the film industry,but misses just about every target that it aims at.As one other reviewer has mentioned she is reminiscent of Ruby Keeler ie talentless.She is just totally out of her depth.Dennis Price is the nominal star of this film,but echoing is spiraling down career he only appears for about 20 minutes.He just had to appear in what ever he was offered he was desperately short of money.However there are 2 standout female performances both which show star potential.Diana Dors is great as usual and playing a sister of Proudfoot is the great Kay Kendall.just a couple of years away from stardom in Genevieve.

Pauline Stroud the star of Lady Godiva Rides Again had a respectable career. But a lot of very familiar folks are down the cast list of this film

In Lady Godiva Strikes Again, Stroud a working class girl from the midlands who on a lark enters a beauty contest and wins. She gets to ride as Lady Godiva did through the streets of Coventry, but this could also mean a career in the British cinema.

Her father Stanley Holloway playing a role as dad that Eugene Pallette would have done in America is real skeptical about this. So's her working class boyfriend George Cole, nice guy but a bit of a lout. No reason she shouldn't reach for the stars.

Dennis Price is the nominal star of this film, but he's got a limited amount of screen time. He plays a supercilious screen star, a whole lot like the part he did in Kind Hearts And Coronets. An arranged studio date with Stroud turns out to be a disaster all around with the paparazzi getting a most indelicate picture of him.

Down the cast list though you will find British beauties Diana Dors and Joan Collins and Kay Kendall as contestants, Sidney James as a casting director and Alastair Sim as a milk drinking (ulcers) studio head. Even Trevor Howard who was a reigning star of the UK cinema has an unbilled walk on.

It all does work out in the end and Stroud's a wiser girl for it. Lady Godiva never had a ride like this though.

Made in the year of the Festival of Britain, this film is prefaced by a warning that it "Contains mild innuendo, cultural depictions of the era".

Pauline Stroud has long served as one the great warnings to aspiring actresses since she vanished almost without trace after playing the title role in this film, but actually aquits herself well and shows considerable cow-eyed charm.

Diana Dors as a hardened pro is supposed to be the film's glamour girl, but compared to the lovely Kay Kendal - wasted in a small part - she comes a very poor third; while harsh reality intrudes in the form of a predatory Dennis Price and Eddie Byrne's observation that life in austerity Britain for most girls consists of "seven years to live and then the kitchen sink."

This was a hugely enjoyable film for those of us who were around when it was made. Even sixty years on I can still remember Battersea Funfair.

What I do wonder though, is how many in a modern audience will get all the topical jokes, a few for instance: the reference to Johnny being a butter patter: in those days Sainsbury's cut butter from a block, and patted it with wooden patters to the required weight; in the cinema Johnny buys a brickette ice-cream (without wafers); the 10/- fine if a half-naked girl moved during a tableau (Lord Chamberlain's rules - see Mrs Henderson Presents).

Among the nice touches: Alistair Sim's cameo as Hawtry Murington was quite brilliant from the opening, louring, shot of him to his accurate critique of the problems facing the British film industry; as Marjorie goes into see Otto Mann, casting director, a couch is just inside the door.

Although set in the North, the exterior shot of Chanters store is of Bentalls in Kingston. The station with the train back home is Kings Cross (the coaches are Eastern Region). And was the pawnbroker an uncredited Bernard Miles? Oh, and wasn't the 20 year old Diana Dors a dish? (And can somebody identify Joan Collins for me please).

The whole thing was a delight from start to finish (despite the lack of regional accents among the girls).

Irritated with her boyfriend "Johnny" (George Cole) for trying to tell her what she can and cannot do, an attractive young woman named "Marjorie Clark" (Pauline Stroud) joins a beauty contest as an act of defiance. Much to her surprise, she wins the title of "Lady Godiva" and gets to ride fully clothed in the local parade a little while later. She also gets the chance to compete in another, more serious, beauty contest soon afterward. Thanks in large part to the help of another beauty contestant named "Dolores August" (Diana Dors), she also manages to win that contest. Unfortunately, as she delves deeper into the glamour industry, she discovers that things aren't always as they seem, and reality quickly catches up to her. Now, instead of revealing more, I'll just say this was an interesting British comedy with a good plot and solid acting to support it. The problem, however, is that the humor wasn't nearly as sharp as it should have been, and for that reason, I have rated this movie accordingly.