Britannia of Billingsgate

As a movie is being made about life in London's historic Billingsgate fish-market, a dodgy fishmonger, who always thinks he knows best, starts meddling with the sound equipment. By mistake (and a thoroughly contrived one), they find they've recorded his longsuffering wife singing at work in the café next door, and decide they've found a new star.

Suddenly Bert and Bessie are living the high life, with the twentyish John Mills as their motorbike-mad son and Kay Hammond as the flirtatious daughter. Bessie is soon top of the bill in a smash hit, but has to slip away from the grand premiere because her son has entered for a motorbike race, which she thinks is too dangerous for him.

Much of the action is hard to follow, partly because we don't always know who's who and what's where in their new home full of unfamiliar servants, but predictably we end on Bessie singing a Violet Loraine hit 'What do I care?' to huge applause. At 47, Loraine is trying film for the first time (but talkies were still quite new). Maybe she was trying to escape from being identified only as George Robey's co-duettist in 'If you were the only girl in the world', for which both of them were (and are) chiefly remembered.

The Italian film director is played in an embarrassingly clichéd style, possibly trying to mimic Monty Banks. You may spot Glennis Lorimer in her first film-part as John Mills' girlfriend. Although never a top star, she would soon enjoy wide exposure all the same, as the face in the opening frame of every Gainsborough Pictures movie for about fifteen years.

It was cute. Gordon Harker's character did provide me with a few laughs.

For anyone interested in British film production in the 1930s this is a must see film.We get to view the whole production from inception to premiere.We have a detailed look at the British Acoustic system then in use.We get to see both inside and outside of Gaumont British Shepherds Bush studio.which was after the war purchased by the BBC.We see the production of a musical number live with the orchestra on the studio floor.No prerecording in those days.If like me you are also a fan of British cinema building then you have a further treat in store.The premiere takes place at the Gaumont Palace(now Appollo)Hammersmith.It is one of the few cinema palaces of the 30s still more or less intact.We get to see the floodlight exterior,the foyer,the auditorium with the organist rising from the pit(the organ has recently been reinstalled).We see the projectionist starting the projectors and subsequently at the end bringing up the house lights.Also at the beginning there is a view of the old Billingsgate fish market.So don't be put off by the other review.The story is irrelevant what the film shows is how a British musical was produced and shown in the 30s.

This musical comedy from the early years of British talkies is one of only two films to feature once popular music hall and recording star Violet Loraine. In it she plays Bessie Bolton, a fishmonger's wife who is "discovered" by a film studio when her singing is accidentally recorded while they are filming at Billingsgate Fish Market. The rest of the film concerns the effects this has on the rest of her family, husband Bert(well-played by familiar cockney character actor Gordon Harker), son Fred (a thankless part for John Mills) and daughter Pearl (a gross caricature of the working class by Kay Hammond).

Unfortunately plot-wise not much of this is very entertaining, and perhaps apart from Violet Loraine herself and Gordon Harker, Drusilla Wills as Mrs Wigglesworth comes off best. While the role of Italian film director Guidobaldi (Anthony Holles) may have been intended as humorous it falls flat from start to finish.

Miss Loraine and fellow music hall star George Robey were responsible for introducing one of the most popular songs of World War I, "If You Were the Only Girl in the World". While none of the musical numbers in this film approach that kind of success, one must admit that they are pleasant enough on the ear without being in any way memorable, and in fact the musical numbers are probably the best thing about the film. Which I guess in its own way is a tribute to an almost forgotten leading lady from the British music hall past.

This is a nice rough comedy of what happens when a family that is doing all right for itself when in its own walk of life gets thrust into the high life, with no preparation. The cast in support of Violet Lorraine is, in retrospect, stellar (although listening to to a young, frizzy-haired Miss Hammond speak with a Cockney accent is alarming, when I'm more used to her more than a dozen years later in BLITHE SPIRIT), but it's largely an ordinary programmer.... until about halfway through the movie. Then, back among her old friends in the fish market, Miss Lorraine sings a song, and that magic that happens when a stage performer has an audience happens.

There's a sequence in which the film-within-the-film is premiered.. This was shot at the Gaumont Palace at Hammersmith, and the movie audience gets to watch the organ rise from the floor with the organist playing. It's a nice memento of the way that movies used to be presented at first-class houses.

This movie was enough of a success that Miss Lorraine was lured back to the movies for one more effort, but eventually she decided that she was a stage performer, and stuck with that. Still, it's a pleasure to have this record of a star of the stage with a few minutes showing what she could do.