Josephine and Men

The Boulting Brothers often veered from very high highs to very low lows; and 'Josephine and Men' is historically interesting as marking one of the deepest troughs into which they plunged.

Nigel Balchin, hardly known for his sense of fun (and the plot does involve someone offscreen committing suicide), is incongruously credited with scripting this gaudily coloured farce which drags a good cast down with it to hit rock bottom in the mid-fifties morass located between the Boultings' late forties critical peak, and their eventual resurgence during the second half of the fifties (to be followed - along with most of the rest of British cinema - by an even more ignominious plunge during the seventies).

A look at the credits for this film suggest that this should've been one of the prime British films of the decade. A quality cast led by Glynis Johns, Donald Sinden and Peter Finch, a screenwriter (Nigel Bachin) who had written the excellent drama 'Mandy' and helmed by the famed producer/director combo Boulting Brothers at the peak of their careers.

And yet, while 'Josephine And Men' should be an entertainingly light, frothy comedy, it turns out to be a stagy, silly, flat misfire.

A big problem seems to be that the Boulting brothers are atypically for this period aren't directing one of their own scripts. Their style of comedy was usually satirical and full of cartoonish characters; with a comic romantic script they seem totally lost and the film never comes to life.

The quality cast is largely left floundering with their characters and a silly plot. Peter Finch (who would do much better in 'Simon And Laura' from the same year) is especially wasted.

Only some nicely delivered one-liners from Jack Buchanan deliver any spark.

I had always thought that the fifties were a golden era for the Boulting Brothers.They made some classic films in that decade.However this film provides that they were quite capable of producing clinkers.The presence of Jack Buchanan,in one of his last films,gives hope that this will have a certain dated charm.However this is not to be the case.He and the remaining members of the cast sink under the weight of a leaden script.It is difficult to comprehend how they decided to proceed with such a woefully unfunny script.This lapse in judgment cost them their careers when they made the truly awful Hard Battles Soft Beds twenty years later.

Josephine Luton was the making of two men: one by jilting him and the other by marrying him. However, when the first turns out to be legally responsible for embezzling half a million pounds, he hides out with his ex-fiancée and her husband....

Like many of the Boulting Brothers' films, this one turns out to be dramatically too neat to survive their handling -- their specialty was angry-young-men comedies in the era, and the structure of this one is definitely stagy. However, as their movies were very fashionable, they usually managed to assemble great casts, and this one is no exception, with Jack Buchanan as Josephine's rake of an uncle, serving as commentator on the action, the always engaging Glynis Johns -- as the titular Josephine -- and Peter Finch as two of the leads.

It's not a great movie, but the cast manages to milk their roles for everything they're worth.