Upstairs and Downstairs

Based on a 1957 novel by Ronald Scott Thorn, both that and this film relics - the film prettily shot in Eastmancolor - of that far off era before the Lady Chatterly trial when a pair of young newlyweds were expected to employ servants. With a 'hilarious' title song and Philip Green's score constantly nudging us in the ribs to remind us how sidesplitting their attempts to recruit staff are.

Mildly saucy shenanigans ensure with a young Claudia Cardinale playing a fiery Italian and Mylene Demongeot an unsophisticated rural Swede in a sou'wester (despite obviously - as my mother observed when I was watching this on TV many years ago - having "a little French face").

Meeting Miss Demongeot off her train at King's Cross we already encounter an unbilled Shirley Anne Field followed by Susan Hampshire; while Britain's contingent also includes Joan Sims is a Welsh nanny. Anne Heywood, meanwhile, is seen coiled naked around Michael Craig in bed within the first fifteen minutes (it's alright, it's their honeymoon)! Within ten years she would be engaged in more, ahem, solitary activity - still in the alltogether - standing in front of a bathroom mirror in 'The Fox'; by which time Barbara Steele - here playing a Sloane ranger - would be a fixture in exotic continental horror movies.

(Madge Ryan, who plays a frisky WPC, was later one of the team applying the Ludovico Technique in 'A Clockwork Orange'.)

I just saw the movie and was captivated by that young french actress Mylene Demongeot. She played an attractive, yet confused girl.

With a number of the Carry on gang there I thought the movie would be an entire comedy. After the old couple who were hired as baby sitters, it turned into more of a drama, which was unexpected.

The wife's role was not really focused upon and it was really the husband trying to deal with his attraction to the new nanny, like all the rest of the male cast. You got the feeling if another time and another place, who she would have found in the end.

Mylene's character 'Ingrid' was the most interesting. THe way she drifted into the lives of the men around her and even the husbands. I think at the end she didn't know what she wanted and the solution was to end the adventure.

Very entertaining and interesting the way the plot developed to the surprise finish.

I see we have here quite a collection of the "Carry On" gang so expect a lot of hilarious mayhem. Newlyweds Richard (Michael Craig) and Kate (Anne Heywood) are advised by her father (James Robertson Justice) to hire a servant and that's when the troubles begin. From tipster lady to a genteel duo of bank robbers, and others, they encounter some rather eccentric hired help.

Hiring Ingrid (Mylene Demongeot) is their next try at domestic help but she's far too pretty and smart to settle into that role for long. I must admit that when I first saw her she reminded me so much of another lovely young actress, right down to the accent, named Christine Carere, who stars in "A Certain Smile" (1958).

There are lots of funny scenes that keep you laughing, yet later on a mood of thoughtful sadness grips you as hearts are laid bare and broken. What can be sadder than unrequited love but it's a part of life's experiences that help us grow into maturity.

A fun film with a realistic touch as we view the frailties of human nature.

And so they were married, Michael Craig and Anne Heywood. And they were very much in love. But as people have been complaining since Grok burned the aurochs, "You can't get good help anymore".

Ralph Thomas directs this rather sniffy look at the never-ending complaint of the long-suffering middle class from a novel by Ronald Scott Thorn. With his usual comic performer like James Robertson Justice, Sidney James, Joan Hickson, and Joan Sims, he skewers everyone from American clerics to owners of French poodles in a long series four adventures in domestic management; Miss Sims is particularly funny with little more than a long-suffering mien.

Ralph Thomas and Betty Box made routine films like this in between making their highly successful Doctor films.Many of the actors who starred in that series appear here.Basically this film contains a series of sketches showing a newly weds series of disasters with hire help till they find Mylene Demyngot.This then as a dramatic twist to allow a happy ending for the couple.Some good performances enliven what is by any standards a routine fairly unfunny script.Michael Craig gives his standard performance.He was the last actor under contract to the Rank Organisation.