Quiet Weekend

Before seeing this 1946 film I recommend the viewer sees the earlier 1941 film "Quiet Wedding" which was also based on a stage play by Esther McCracken.The latter film introduced the basic characters of the Royd family but there are some glaring anomalies.First the two films/plays are not sequential and some of the characters in "Quiet Wedding" are not present in "Quiet Weekend".Principally I missed not seeing Margaret Lockwood again as Janet Royd, I suppose in 1946 (the year of my birth) she was busy elsewhere filming "Bedelia".Instead of a young Muriel Pavlow, we have Barbara White playing the impish Miranda Bute who is the cousin of Denys Royd (Derek Farr) and on whom she has a girlish crush.This time Miranda tries to sabotage Denys' romance with Rowena (Helen Shingler) whose character seems to gradually evaporate as the film develops.

Another reviewer made the point about the large number of orders given by Mildred Royd (Marjorie Fielding) to all and sundry, no wonder the Fuhrer did not stand a chance when up against British women like this during the war!!Another actress Josephine Wilson (who played Mary Jarrow) eventually becomes engaged to Adrian Barrasford played by Frank Cellier, appeared to be the mysterious Madame Kumar from Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" (1938) who posed as a replacement to "The Lady" played by Dame May Witty.Interestingly, Frank Cellier played Derek Farr's father in the earlier film.Finally the actor Ballard Berkeley ("The Major" in "Fawlty Towers") makes an earlier appearance here playing "Jim Brent".

I laughingly agreed with the user comments above about the very stagy, comic way of 1930s speaking and pronouncement of words in that "I say anyone for tennis?" way of speaking.As I said in "Quiet Wedding" it is all rather endearing now.I rated this film 6/10 and admit to giving "Quiet Weekend" a lesser rating since I am a Margaret Lockwood fan, I missed seeing her in this almost sequel.

The charm in this film lies in its simplicity. Based on a stage play, it shows a middle class family staying at their weekend cottage, leading the easy type of life that has sadly long since disappeared. The highlights of this film are the dreadful concert and the poaching expedition.

The occasional attractive outdoor scenes simply throw into even sharper relief just how tinny and studio-bound the rest of this trivial sequel to 'Quiet Wedding' is as the cast just stand around and talk. And talk. And Talk.

Two unexpected bits of casting are worth remarking upon though. Frank Cellier takes a break from representing cold-hearted capitalism to play a rather jolly and romantic old cove for once. While it also preserves for posterity in her stage role the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young Barbara White who after only a handful of other film roles married Keiron Moore (who murdered her in 'Mine Own Executioner') and was lost to films forever.

For anyone born in the UK before about 1935 (as I was) this movie will bring back memories of austerity, such as very few cars and very little food and primitive plumbing. We all had to make do with what we had; the top rate of income tax was around 95%. Nevertheless the middle classes had those delicious cut-glass English accents; "thanks" was pronounced "thenks". The lower classes such as the old poacher, spoke their lines in broad accents and were usually considered to be comic characters.

That has all changed now. This movie is good entertainment but also of value to the social historians. It is the way the British coped with the rigors of victory after WW II, i.e. paying off the huge loans owed to the USA while trying to become a socialist society.

Another effortlessly charming ensemble British comedy about a deliciously erudite group of middle-class city slickers whose blissfully bucolic sojourn in their politely ramshackle country abode very soon impolitely turns into a splendidly silly series of splendiferous larks, pratfalls, misadventures, and wonderfully barbed badinage! 'Quiet Weekend' is thankfully never twee, wholesomely funny, undeniably edifying fare, being divinely nostalgic fun, no less crisply satisfying than a freshly cut cucumber sandwich, frequently frothier than a barrel of ginger beer, feisty familial intrigues, burgeoning love affairs, petty jealousies, rain-drenched picnics, and pulse-pounding bouts of midnight Salmon poaching, 'Quiet Weekend' is a far from sedate affair, an enormously good-natured, decidedly classy comedy that is bound to revivify one's flagging spirits like the bracing mustard-infused baths so blithely prescribed by the likeable Royd family's preternaturally capable matriarch Mildred Royd (Marjorie Fielding).