Climbing High

You would never guess that this picture was plagued by such horrendous production difficulties because it feels such a fun, silly hour and a half of pure happy enjoyment.

This film marked the end of an era; it was the last of those wonderfully frivolous 1930s romantic comedies starring the gorgeous Jessie Matthews. Despite the problems of making this and considering that it didn't perform too well at the box office, it's actually pretty good and surprisingly just as enjoyable as her other pictures. Gaumont-British officially went bust during filming and its original director (and husband of Jessie Matthews) was fired during the takeover by Rank. All of this turmoil makes this feel quite different to her earlier films - but not in a bad way.

The modus operandi of the new studio wasn't the same as G-B's opulent style. This was rushed, there's less attention to detail, the sets look cheaper, there doesn't seem to be any budget for Jessie's usual designer dresses and most significantly of all, the there's no musical numbers. That the new regime dropped all of her song and dance numbers signalled the end of her career as a musical film star. The silver screen would never again glow with the incandescence of her incredible and exceptional sensuous dancing or hear her singing - times were changing. Like Joan Blondell (who like Jessie Matthews was also the sexiest woman in the world!), she was a superstar in the 30s but as time moved on she found herself just getting bit parts. Both she and Joan Blondell personified that cheerful naïve optimism in the face of adversity which was so necessary through the 1930s but that mood would not fit in the 40s when people realised that the world was a much darker place.

What would have been a musical romantic comedy is now relegated to being just a comedy but that focus actually makes this a funnier faster-paced comedy - a very funny and cheerful comedy. Michael Redgrave, who was parachuted into this at the last minute makes a far better and authentic male lead than Barry MacKay who'd been in her last few films. What makes this almost close to comic genius is that Redgrave and everyone else play their parts completely straight and seriously even as the story gets more and more absurd. Alastair Sim is hilariously bonkers and just so weird then just as you think it can't get any more crazy, Mr Jaggers from GREAT EXPECTATIONS tuns up swinging off a Swiss mountain thinking he is a bird bellowing 'tweet, tweet, tweet.' It's almost Monty Python!

Reviwers have been sniffy about this light madcap comedy, starring Jessie Matthews as a penniless lingerie model in a West End advertising agency and Michael Redgrave as an amiable young man about town with a huge Mercedes convertible. He is meant to be marrying a manipulative penniless aristocrat, after him only for status and money, but after knocking our Jessie down twice falls for her instead. The climax unites key characters in the Swiss Alps for final tomfoolery and pairing off.

Nice cameos for Basil Radford as Redgrave's pal, Torin Thatcher as Jessie's Canadian brother, Noel Madison as an American ad man. Alastair Sim as a Communist model who doesn't believe in working under capitalism and Francis L Sullivan as an escaped madman who thinks he is an opera singer. He and Jessie duet hilariously in old standards like "Maritana" and "Il bacio", so we hear her delightful singing even if we don't get any dancing.

It is all enjoyable fluff, free of any social or political content, meant only to amuse. Not Jessie's greatest picture, but she is still entrancing as ever.

Climbing High is a British attempt to make an American style screwball comedy and while it has a few amusing moments it will never threaten something like My Man Godfrey or It Happened One Night. It was Michael Redgrave's second film and a bit of a let down from his debut in the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes. But it did have the distinction of introducing Redgrave to Carol Reed who had been doing a lot of light fluff at the time. A year later Reed and Redgrave teamed to direct and star in The Stars Look Down which was Reed's first critically acclaimed film.

Michael Redgrave plays a young rich playboy who like in so many American films of this accidentally runs into Jessie Matthews who is not knowing where the next job is coming from. Redgrave's been linked in the society columns to titled woman Margaret Vyner. She'd dearly love to marry him because while she has the title, he has the pound sterling. He's not really interested in her, especially after he sees Matthews, but not thinking it's worth the time and trouble to issue denials to the tabloids. And he gives a fictitious name to Matthews because of the tabloids and her impression of him through what she reads there.

Not to say there aren't a few good scenes and some real laughs like Redgrave turning on a wind machine full blast at a modeling shoot that Matthews is at, or later he and Matthews humoring lunatic Francis L. Sullivan who just escaped the rubber room. But the whole premise of this one is more silly than funny. If Redgrave just told Matthews who he was it would have solved everything. But then there wouldn't be a picture.

One should also make note of American Noel Madison in the cast who plays an advertising executive, who plays it Madison Avenue style for the British public. Usually Madison was featured in gangster films in the USA. Also Torin Thatcher is here as Matthews stern brother who wants to get the guy who wronged his sister. Last but not least is Alastair Sim who plays Matthews Communist friend who will turn capitalist if it suits him on occasion, but with a tear for Lenin.

Climbing High is an amusing enough film, but doesn't come close to American screwball comedies of the time.

With the exception of a couple of films in the forties and fifties this was the last film produced by Gaumont British.It was the biggest production company in the UK but closed down in 1938.It ran into money troubles and closed down production.This was supposed to be a musical directed by Donnie Hale.Alas all the music was taken out and what we are left with is a sad epitaph to her starring career.Unfortunately this is a sad imitation of the screwball comedies then popular with Hollywood.Michael Redgrave is unsuited to his role .As for Alistair SIM and Francis Sullivan all one can say is,bizarre.

This is a very confusing comedy.

The main plot line revolves around Michael Redgrave, unhappily engaged to a society lady, who falls for a lingerie model played by Jessie Matthews and her overbite. Much to-ing and fro-ing, playing of masquerades lead to the conclusion everyone expects, but the alarms and excursions are strange indeed.

We have Alastair Sim doing a tremendous job as a poverty-stricken, bitter comic communist, but we also have a loony who is obsessed with opera-singing. His second appearance is completely inexplicable.

Enough of the original plot shows through for the storyline to just about hang together - even if only with the assistance of a suspension bridge for the disbelief - but there's an awful lot of "what the...?" likely from an attentive viewer.

Odd entertainment.