Ladies Who Do

Peggy Mount stars in this British film. Since she isn't exactly a star and the film was relatively low budget, it's rare for anyone here in the States to get a chance to see it. I found the film on YouTube and am very glad I saw it, as the film was quite funny and very original.

Mount stars as a cleaning lady. One day, by chance, she brings home a slip of paper from an office she'd been cleaning and her renter (Robert Morley) recognizes that the paper is actually inside information about a big financial deal. So, he gambles everything and soon earns a tidy return. But when he approaches his landlady about the idea of her bringing in more papers she finds in the trashcans, the story ends up going places you don't expect-- including his soon employing several cleaning ladies to bring him all the trash from their offices! Soon, they're making a fortune. What's next?

The plot is quite original, there are plenty of cute and funny moments and the film is nice because the acting and writing are spot on target. It also has a strong populist bent--one that pits these simple ladies about capitalist investors. Well worth seeing.

My mother took me to see this at the cinema and I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed today when it was on the Talking Pictures channel. The premise was pinched recently for the Sheridan Smith series 'Cleaning Up' although not a comedy like this one. It's a typical 60's B&W comedy that could sit alongside the Carry On films with a wealth of British comedy talent of the day led by Robert Morley and Peggy Mount with Harry H Corbett as the villain of the piece.

I really disliked Peggy Mount when she was Ada Larkin in 'The Larkins' she was so horrible to David Kossoff, as a 6 year old at the time I didn't understand she was acting. So one day on holiday on the Norfolk broads she was having lunch with Pat Combs in the hotel we were staying in. My father said go in and ask her for an autograph so I went up and said 'Please Lady Mount, can I have your autograph?' she was so sweet and obliged, I then went back and gave her mine, she laughed saying it was the first time anyone had given on back.

Lovely lady, lovely film.

Peggy Mount is the charwoman for developer Harry H. Corbett's office. She finds a perfectly good cigar in the trash and takes it for Robert Morley, whom she also does for. He discovers the scrap of paper Miss Mount wrapped the cigar in contains a market scheme. He takes advantage and clears five thousand pounds, then proposes to go into business with four chars from the City: they will bring the scraps of paper thrown out by the Masters of The Universe, and he will speculate accordingly in the market. There's also a subplot about Corbett tossing all the people in Miss Mount's neighborhood out -- with new housing provided -- so he can develop the area.

Although the details of how the market and development work are correct in substance, the script by Michael Pertwee and John Bignall has a lot of moving parts, and underdeveloped characters. There's social satire, business satire, making fun of unionized labor...all the bugaboos you could find in a Boulting Brothers movie, but there's a soft, gooey center to the whole thing: Corbett was born in the next street over from Miss Mount's, his mother charred for ninepence a night when she could get it, and wound up in the work house. The movie hangs together well enough while you watch it, but any subtext is lost in the clamor.

Mrs. Cragg, a cleaning lady, inadvertently picks up some inside trading information that could earn a fortune. The idea to repeat the action spawns a company; 'Ladezudu.'

A nice comedy of working class makes good. Some good gags and excellent physical humour. In the end when the rags have made their riches they become the ones wanting to exploit the poor.

If you want to know what 1960s working class looked like this is a good start.

I liked Mrs Parish.

LADIES WHO DO is a fun working class comedy about a put-upon cleaner, played with over-the-top relish by Peggy Mount, who comes into some money and decides to put it to good use via some decidedly illegal methods. This involves her employing an army of cleaners in a battle with a local property developer who is planning to raze their homes to the ground.

This is the kind of film which British studios used to do so well and it has a kind of cheeky, cheery, working class charm to it like the CARRY ON movies. Although Mount is an acquired taste for sure, the supporting cast is quite exemplary, headed over by Harry H. Corbett who is very convincing as the villain of the piece. Robert Morley plays the usual Robert Morley type role while Jon Pertwee is one of Corbett's aides (and Pertwee's own brother, Michael, wrote the script).

Avril Elgar and Dandy Nichols play other cleaning women and there are bit parts for Nigel Davenport, John Laurie, Ron Moody, Harry Fowler, Arthur Mullard. LADIES WHO DO packs plenty of one-liners and absurdist situations into the short running time and ends on a high with a pitched battle between the saboteurs and the workmen. It's not one of the best British comedies out there, but there's little to dislike about this film nonetheless.