Shipyard Sally

Gracie Fields is getting tired of playing the provincial music halls, but she's appalled when her father-manager, Sydney Howard, takes her savings and buys a pub right by the Tyneside. It's a busy place -- until the next day, when the yards are closed down. She's just about to lose the place when word comes that Morton Selten is to write a binding recommendation to Parliament whether to start building ships again. Gracie is deputed to carry a petition to him, but cannot see him; finally, she impersonates an American singer at a party and wins his attention by singing "Danny Boy." But before she can speak to him....

Miss Fields gets a fine comic bit in which she sneaks into a men's club wearing a magician's outfit that keeps doing tricks. She also sings several songs, including one awful original number, "I Got the Jitterbug" and one lovely number, :Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye" and, in general, holds up her end as the Queen of the Lancashire Lassies. It was off to Hollywood after this, where, despite four movies over the next six years, she never quite connected as hoped with the audiences, so it was back to the U.K. and the Music Halls. Still, this is a lively movie for her, and a sure pleasure for her fans.

One of the most charming and easily enjoyable B musicals I have seen, "Shipyard Sally" may not have memorable songs or big dance numbers, but it slowly bowled me over with its playful whimsicality and quirky allure of its innocent cast.

Gracie Fields is superb as the title heroine - the earthy, vivacious saloon singer determined to fight for the reopening of the shipyard where her customers work. The saloon, located in Clydebank, is owned by her father Major Fitzgerald (a marvelously droll Sydney Howard), who is also her partner. Sally travels to London, with a petition of thousands of unemployed workers, to meet Lord Randall (Morton Selten), the head of the Shipyard business. As she leaves Clydebank, she sings "Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye". Since she can't meet him right away, Sally first impersonates as a man and then assumes the identity of another singer Linda Marsh (Tucker Maguire) to meet Randall at a private ball where Sally sings and dances before a group of aristocratic guests.

I saw "Shipyard Sally" one late night on TV by accident and I loved it. I never heard of it before but it quickly became one of my fave musicals. See it if you can.

"Sally" (Gracie Fields) finds herself the owner of a pub on the banks of the Clyde just as HM Queen Mary has launched her namesake ocean liner - a testament to the huge industry thriving on the banks of that river at the time. Well, that was the theory anyway. Next thing, the jobs have dried up and everyone is flat broke. "Sally" tries her best to support her out-of-work population, but eventually even she runs out of cash and bankruptcy beckons. Then a newspaper headline announces that the government is to review the future of shipbuilding there and so the workers unanimously elect her as their spokesperson to head to London and persuade "Lord Randall" (Morton Selten) and just as importantly, his wife (Norma Varden) of the merits of saving the yards and the jobs. The fact that she's a Lancastrian lass might make her an unlikely ambassador for a bunch of Scottish welders, but can she up her game enough to swing it? This is quite a jolly vehicle for a star who joins in wholeheartedly, gels amiably with Sydney Howard's theatrical "Fitzgerald" and belts out a couple of toe-tappers like "Wish Me Luck..." as well a few traditional Scots songs. On the downside, someone ought to have told Monty Banks that Scotch is whisky, no person ever refers to themselves as Scotch but that's a guid auld bit of pedantry as this hit the screens just as WWII started to gather menace. The audio doesn't really do her any favours, but it's still quite enjoyable.

I saw this movie shortly after its release just at the beginning of WW II and thoroughly enjoyed it. But its principal fame is that it by accident provided one of the most popular and relevant British songs of WW II. The song , "Wish me Luck", has it place in the movie as Gracie Fields' character leaves the shipyard for London to battle for the jobs of the shiphyard workers. But the words fitted admirably also for men and women leaving for military service. It was widely used in that context during WW II, users not being aware that originally it had nothing to do with the war. I have just been listening to a CD of Wartime Hits. It has "Wish me luck" as the climaxing recording at the close. Almost none one playing the CD today would realise that it originally was not a wartime song. But though originally used in a different context, it fitted the wartime situation admirably

Although Shipyard Sally was intended to gee up the spirits of the massive numbers of unemployed in England at the time; particularly the dockyard workers, the films intention fell flat. The "feel good" atmosphere that, "things will improve" and "we all will be OK" is pervasive. Sally, (Gracie Fields) the saloon singer, fights for the reopening of the shipyard where her customers work; armed with a petition of thousands of unemployed workers, meets the head of the Shipyards. Its here she sings the memorable "Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye". However all this effort fell on fallow ground because unfortunately, prior to the films release (16 October 1939 UK), on the 1 September 1939 came the invasion of Poland by Germany and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. The world was at war and the UK shipyards were about to be tripled in size. The vagaries of release date;

The film was released 16 October 1939 (UK) more than a month after the beginning of the Second World War.