I'll Be Your Sweetheart

Fun all round with a very witty script that lifts it higher. So nice to see the wonderful Michael Rennie holding the story. It wouldn't have worked without his fine natural performance alongside Margaret Lockwood with whom he worked so well in a number of films.

The credit reads "Introducing Michael Rennie" in his eighteenth movie. He and Peter Graves -- the English one, not the American one -- simultaneously come up with the idea of fighting the pirate music publishers at the turn of the 20th Century, by matching their sixpenny prices for sheet music, and courting a singing Margaret Lockwood. Her singing is done by Maudie Edwards. The pirates, led by Garry Marsh, drop their prices to tuppence, while debates on enforcing copyright go on in Parliament and Moore Marriott as songwriter George Le Brunn dies in poverty, leaving widow Muriel George an estate of less than two pounds.

This Gainsborough musical, directed and co-written by Valentine Guest, reminds me a great deal of the nostalgic Betty Grable musicals of the period. True, it's black & white. True, there are only a couple of songs by Le Brunn, and three more by his contemporaries, with a further three supplied by Guest and a collaborator. Still it fits neatly into the genre, with some good, if stagebound choreography and a great sequence set in contemporary Blackpool.

Miss Lockwood gets top billing, followed by Vic Oliver, in what I think of as the Jack Oakie role, to Rennie's John Payne and Miss Lockwood's Grable. It was Oliver's last feature film, released the year his marriage with Sarah Churchill ended. Although I am not as familiar with the music-hall tunes of the era as their American contemporaries, there is obviously a great deal of fondness for them in this movie, giving it a patina of sincerity that is very pleasant.

Maybe the budget was too high to go to the cost of colour. The musical numbers are rather drab in black and white. The numbers themselves are fairly unimaginatively staged. This despite the fact that the choreographer is future director Wendy Toyed.

The film could also have done with a musical star in the lead. Margatet Lockwood makes a good fist of her role,but is just lacking something.

The film is overlong at 100 minutes and could have done with some pruning.. Moore Marriott plays George Lewis Brunn who composed Oh Mr Porter the title of Marriott's best known and much loved film .

This was definitely not Gainsborough why did you type of film.

"This film is dedicated to those grand old song writers of yesterday whose melodies are the folk songs of today. Their battle against the music pirates who robbed them of their just rewards, is the inspiration for this story."

And so the film starts. A delightful little musical, with some truly beautiful songs. The film starts to drag a bit after a while (it's about an hour and 3 quarters long), but the songs you'll never tire of. A heartwarming little piece that is well deserved a watch if you manage to catch it :)

This film deserves another comment so I'm putting electronic pen to web site.If you like singing along to good old time music hall songs circa 1900 and you are a fan of Margaret Lockwood, then this 1945 musical film is for you.The film title of course is a famous song but so are: "Mary-Anne", "I am the honeysuckle you are the bee","Oh Mr Porter", "I wouldn't leave my little wooden house for you" and others listed in the film credits.I guarantee you will be singing along to some or all of the numbers. It was a revelation to find Margaret could sing and dance but a look at her biography revealed she went to the acclaimed Italia Conti Drama school in her youth as well as attending R.A D.A. so she was well versed in the performing arts.She also gave music as one of her interests in an interview.

The Victorian songwriter George le Brun is remembered as much as for the piracy prevalent in those days prior to 1905 when it took a bill of Parliament to introduce a copyright law to protect royalties for songwriters and their music publishers.Peter Graves again appears with Margaret as before in "Give Us The Moon" (1944) as he vies for her hand with Michael Rennie who both play music publishers.Michael Rennie appears again in 1945 playing "Kit" with Margaret in "The Wicked Lady".In the subject film Margaret plays Edie a famous music hall Marie Lloyd type singer who has to choose between her rival suitors.