music-room

Picture it: it is 1948, the war has been over for three years, and the cold winds of change are a blowin'. Britain's greatest hero, Churchill, has been so cruelly shunned by an ungrateful electorate, His Majesty King George VI looks to be ageing rapidly, and the variety circuit is fast becoming an anachronism, all heralding a new age, one of power cuts, freezing winters and nationalisation. The British film industry is finding its feet, with great offerings such as 'Great Expectations' (1945), 'Oliver Twist' (1946) and 'My Brother Jonathan'(1947). Wonderful though these films undoubtedly are, they are all backward looking, nostalgic, products of a bygone age. Now along comes 'Here Come the Huggetts'. Although introduced to a pre - war audience in the excellent 'Holiday Camp' (1938), they belong to a new age altogether, and the film breaks new ground, as instanced by Kathleen Harrison's hysteria at the installation of a telephone, still relatively rare in immediate post war Britain, a scene of utter delight, as she adjures that this dangerous device might 'go off', just like a recently discovered wartime bomb. Indeed, this fine, incredibly long lived character actress (1892 - 1995) was never more accomplished than here, in this superb film. The casting is perfect: each character is so expertly, finely delineated, utterly believable, from the quasi intellectual, pompously played to perfection by David Tomlinson, who was to acquire international recognition for his blustering, vulnerable father, George Banks, in Disney's blockbuster, 'Mary Poppins', to a delightfully cantankerous Amy Venness, as Jack Warner's tough - as - old - boots mother - in - law. Doris Hare plays a well drawn cameo, as a gossipy neighbour, Clive Morton is vaguely aristocratic as Jack Warner's boss, and John Blythe is a cadaverous garage owner, who bullies his junior mechanic, played by a vulnerable, much put upon Peter Hammond. Warner is as solid as a rock, and so is Jimmy Hanley, who nearly misses his wedding day, as he rescues his best man Hammond from a police cell after a drunken car crash. In this film Warner has three daughters, with the Rank Charm School much in evidence. They even keep their own Christian names, Sue (Susan Shaw), Jane (Hylton) and Pet, the nascent musical star Petula Clark, here happily among friends after appearing in that post war turkey, 'London Town'. Shaw is bright and breezy, a far cry from her troubled character in Noel Coward's 'This Happy Breed', Hylton is the splendidly neurotic bride - to - be, who, in Hanley's absence, becomes awkwardly enmeshed with Tomlinson, and Petula Clark chirps away splendidly in 'Walking Backwards', to Esma Cannon's eccentric conducting - a pity we couldn't have had more. Enter Diana Dors, to an incredibly risqué response from Warner. Dors shows that she really can act, as the malingering niece, lounging in bed and upsetting nail varnish on a vital order from at the factory where Warner works, earning him temporary demotion. The overall theme of the film is, appropriately, 'A new beginning', as the film builds up to its climax, Jane and Jimmy's wedding, which, to the relief of everyone (bar Tomlinson), goes without a hitch. A clever parallel is found in the backdrop of the Royal Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, contemporary (20th November, 1947) and highly topical, a seminal instance of lateral thinking in the film's denouement. A sparkling, expertly crafted script underpins the entire production, highlighting the subtle family relationships against the austerity of the times - Mabel Constanduros is much in evidence, as is Peter Rogers, a decade before the inception of 'Carry on' films. In essence, the Huggetts are our first real 'soap' family, forerunners of the Beals of Eastenders and the Dingles of Emmerdale. In their own ways, they all pull together, through thick and through thin, anticipating the next episode and the renewal of their contracts. A brave new world is inhabited by this likable lower middle class suburban Huggett family, for the war is over, and there's 'hope for years to come'. Subsequent Hugget films never reached these giddy heights, although Warner went on to play the eponymous Dixon of Dock Green, while Petula Clark reached international stardom - for them, at least, it was indeed a brave new world.

'Yield to the Night'is a child of its time, the mid fifties. Set against the grim background of the condemned cell in what is presumed to be Holloway prison (the only hanging prison for women at that time),it is a strong statement against capital punishment in general, and for a condemned woman, in particular. By 1956, popular opinion in Britain had turned against the death penalty, fuelled by a series of unpopular executions, Derek Bentley, the educationally subnormal youth hanged in 1953 for the shooting of a policeman on a Croydon factory rooftop when his seventeen year old accomplice, Chris Craig, had fired the fatal shot (Craig was too young to hang); the executions of two women in quick succession, Louisa Merrifield and Stylou Christofi, and the cause celebre of Ruth Ellis, who shot her lover, David Blakely, outside a North London public house.

Obviously Ellis was the inspiration for Dors' character, Mary Hilton (both blondes, both shoot their lovers while emotionally distraught). Director J. Lee Thompson had worked with Diana Dors in the 1954 film 'The Weak and the Wicked', which, like 'Yield to the Night', was based on a book by Joan Henry. Times had changed, even during those two intervening years, and Thompson yearned for a broader, more hard hitting statement than his earlier offering. The action scenes are much pacier, with quick scene changes and remarkable (for its day) camera angles - the shots of Dors around a fountain amount to a cinematic work of art, and the murder itself is a tour de force of close ups, almost unbearable suspense and facial expressions (note the face of the uncredited cab driver when he realises what Mary has done).

We skip the trial to the first prison scene where the governor, played to perfection by that most authoritative of actresses, Marie Ney, informs Mary that her appeal had been denied. Geoffrey Keen, as a thoughtful chaplain, leaves the cell when Mary's lawyer appears, played by the veteran Charles Lloyd Pack, with an optimism that borders on insouciance. Mary settles into the daily routine, comforted by Liam Redmond, as the caring doctor. Flashbacks trace Mary's failed romance with Jim, a once ambitious pianist whose inner emotions are in turmoil, who is reduced to playing in nightclubs and acting as a third rate host, dancing with various women, including Mary's nemesis, the well heeled Lucy. Mary is besotted with him, but he is fatally attracted to Lucy, fuelling Mary's inveterate hatred for her. Jim commits suicide, leaving a note that is addressed to Lucy, pushing Mary over the edge. The flashbacks are not as convincing as the rest of the film, but perhaps that is due to their nature - we already know that Mary has shot Lucy, so the lead up to that cataclysmic situation is somehow diluted.

However, the prison scenes more than make up for that. The set is so incredibly realistic, down to the 'door with no handle', the door through which Mary will step, on execution morning. As the clock ticks down to that fateful day, some of the finest character actresses of the day shine through the gloom - Joan Miller, whose calm exterior finally cracks when Mary's reprieve is denied, and who entwines the shell-shocked Mary's fingers around a welcome mug of tea; prolific character actress Marianne Stone, as the flustered stand in wardress; the fearsome Olga Lindo, magnificent as veteran Warder Hill, whose granite exterior finally succumbs to pity as she strokes Mary's hair, a wonderfully touching nuance of direction which would not have been possible in 'The Weak and the Wicked'. Athene Seyler, who was also in 'The Weak and the Wicked' appears as a philanthropic 'prison visitor' who gives Mary flowers from her garden. However, the performance of Yvonne Mitchell, as the caring, Christian wardress, who offers Mary a blindfold to help her sleep (much to the chagrin of Hill), is towering in its tenderness and vulnerability, even getting away with the line: 'Have you ever thought that we ALL die, some morning'? (My own mother died at 7:45 pm!) Amazingly, the line works because of the well drawn relationship between the two.

The ending is dramatic - Mary is kneeling in the chapel with the chaplain while the hangman and his assistant are watching from behind an open door - we only see their hands, the hands which will put her to death, another triumph of creative direction and camera work. On the morning of the fateful day Mary leaves her partly smoked cigarette in the ash tray and her silhouette is seen from the front, arriving through THAT door, with the chaplain behind her, a detail that was incorrect, because the assistant executioner would be behind her, having tied her hands behind her back - in 1956 the secrets of capital punishment were still closely guarded, and would not be made public until the autobiography of chief hangman Albert Pierrepoint (1977) and his one time assistant, Syd Dernley in the late eighties.

Dors showed that she really could act, and that the British film industry was capable of producing work of realism and depth, a much better film than Susan Hayward's much vaunted film about Ruth Ellis's American equivalent, Barbara Graham, 'I want to live'! And the message? A life for a life is futile, and life should be for living. Yield to this fifties gem of true excellence.

It doesn't bode too well when the opening scene of Formby's 1942 film involves a set that is so rickety and artificial looking that the slightest breeze will blow it over, and dear Kathleen Harrison (by then fifty years of age, and destined to live to 103)is the closest to a young female lead. Indeed, it is odd to relate that this is the first Formby film not to have a young female co - star to 'mother' the helpless Formby. Perhaps, after having cast a beady eye over the likes of Polly Ward, Phyllis Calvert and Dorothy Hyson, Formby's delectable co - stars in former hit films, George's over protective wife and manager, Beryl, blocked her husband's usual young female interest, supplanting such gorgeous beauties with diminutive, twenty year old Jimmy Clitheroe. Poor Jimmy - he was destined to have a glittering variety career, and a seminal radio series, 'The Clitheroe Kid', which ran for fifteen years, and a successful TV series, 'Just Jimmy', with Molly Sugden; but here, in an early film entry, he struggles in his relationship with George : is he George's son, or brother? Why is he there, living in a run down caravan, and not at school? Or perhaps he's an evacuee with a Lancashire accent.

Clitheroe's character is not the only weak piece of characterisation: other character actors, normally so reliable, struggle as well. Hilda Bayley, magnificent as Marie Lohr's dotty sister in 'Went the Day Well'?, made in the same year, and a wonderfully acerbic gossip in 'My Brother Jonathan', is almost in a daydream here; Joss Ambler huffs and puffs to no good effect, Gibb LcLaughlin, a far cry from his superb funeral director in Ealing's definitive 'Oliver Twist', is the stereotypical vicar, whose aristocratic family has probably sent the fool of the family into the church, (compare with Christopher Steele's beautifully drawn incumbent in the much better 'Tawny Pipit', two years later) and Peter Gawthorne adds another unsympathetic authority figure to his portfolio. (But with no sign of Will Hay). Frederick Burtwell, as the post master, is as wooden as those curious shutters that are removed from the front of the shop every morning, impervious to the attentions of a besotted Kathleen Harrison, even when the flimsy plot unfolds, in which he has seen a risqué portrait of her, allegedly drawn by George Andy (Formby).

Formby's successful films and smash hit songs had relied on innuendo, amazingly suggestive for the 1940s, but they were always subtle and funny. Here, the scenario of Formby's character painting semi nude portraits of local women is clumsy, silly and, quite frankly, not very funny. There was another problem - this was Formby's 16th film in eight years, and he had used up all his greatest songs. The result is new material, and I am afraid that 'Andy the handy man', 'Talking to the moon about you' and 'Delivering the morning milk' do not sit well beside the legendary songs of former films, 'Fanlight Fanny', 'My grandad's flannelet shirt' and 'Our sergeant major', to name but three.

Director Marcel Varnel does his best to raise the level of interest, in a scene where angry locals surround Formby's caravan and push it down a hill.. if only the film had ended there! Instead, it limps on, lamely, as our star gets on with the exciting task of delivering the morning milk. And that's another problem - the lack of action, as dictated by the setting. In former films, action and excitement are an integral part of the film, such as in 'TT Races', 'Spare a Copper', the RAF setting of 'It's in the Air', and the exciting spy at sea setting of 'Let George do it', which had a superb band backing Formby's songs.

Perhaps the whole conception of 'Much too shy' (what is the significance of the title, anyway?) lies in an escape to the country, far away from the bombs and deprivation of London and the major cities in war time, a theme that is handled expertly in the aforementioned 'Went the Day Well?' (1942) and the underrated 'Tawny Pipit' (1944). However, in 'Much too Shy' the caricatures are simplistic, not helped by an unimaginative and plodding script. Formby soon returned to the 'war' scenario in 'Get Cracking' (1943), but the writing was on the wall, if not on the portraits themselves.. Formby's film career was almost over, after a glittering twelve year period, and he was soon to be overtaken by another great star who would hold our screens for a similar twelve year period - Norman Wisdom (1953 - 65). Unless you are a Formby connoisseur, or you suffer from insomnia, don't bother with this film. After sitting stoically through this offering, I reached for Formby's 'Trouble Brewing' (1939), and my faith was restored. For the first time, George could never say 'turned out nice again' about one of his films.