Climbing High

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.

I have a large collection of old movies, what a treat it is to find an excellent film that I had never seen before. I'm so happy to have this excellent film in my 3,000 DVD/Blu-ray collection. To guard against censorship or banning, I always want to have a physical copy. The disc I purchased is from VCI. The audio and video quality are excellent and the disc was pressed, not burned.

This is a very funny movie! Do you like the Marx brothers? Did you like the movie "You Can't Take It With You". If the answer is yes, then this movie is for you. I enjoy beautiful women in my movies. I wasn't sure what to think the first time I saw Jessie Matthews. Yes, she's very pretty, but the incredible expressions that she can make give her that "goofy look" that really comes across well in this terrific film.

This is a wacko British film that has almost everything comedic. It is a madcap, satire, sillyness, wacky and screwball comedy. Climbing High is an entertaining and uplifting film, that charms you rather than overwhelms you. Michael Redgrave plays Nicky Brooke, a millionaire unhappily involved with a society dame who is primarily interested in him for his money and name. Matthews plays a beautiful young girl of limited means, Diana Castle, who works as a model (along with her roommate, Alastair Sim, portraying a Communist forced to take a job as the loincloth-clad "before" picture in a muscle-building ad). While out driving, Brooke nearly runs over Diana; in the process, he falls for her but decides that he will have a better chance of getting his love returned if he courts her in disguise. Disguised as another ordinary working man, he succeeds -- until his real identity is revealed. More complications ensue -- including an escaped lunatic and a finale in which all of the characters end up climbing the Alps.

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.

I could only give this farcical "comedy" 4/10 compared to the 5.2 on IMDb.com.I agree with the previous user comments and tuned into this film after searching on Michael Redgrave hoping for a similar experience to "The Lady Vanishes" (1938).As usual in Britsh comedy/farces there is a lot of running around, characters misunderstanding names and highly improbable sudden scene changes like when you are suddenly catapulted from London, England to alpine Switzerland.I must give a mention to Mary Clare, familiar to me from playing the baroness in "The Lady Vanishes" and the landlady in "A Girl Must Live" (1939).Here she plays Lady Emily Westaker who is trying to marry off her daughter, Lady Constance (Margaret Vyner), by any means to Michael Redgrave who plays a playboy who nearly runs Jessie Matthews over and almost immediately attempts to seriously woo her.It was at this point reality was left far behind.I had only ever heard Jessie when I was young playing Mrs Dale the wife of a doctor in "Mrs Dales Diary", whose memorable line was "I'm worried about Jim".I understand Jessie could sing and the producers contrived to give vent to her singing voice albeit in a strange farcical setting when Francis L Sullivan, playing an overweight opera loving madman, accosts Jessie and only lets her go when she shows her singing ability.

Basil Radford made an appearance playing Michael Redgrave's best friend, and for once he didn't have his partner Naunton Wayne in tow.Basil did films on his own like "The Galloping Major".The funniest scene was pure slapstick when the speed control of a wind machine in the advertising studio is set to maximum and mayhem inevitably results.It was strange seeing Alastair Sim playing a purposely out of work communist and showing his torso!Another actor not lost on me was Torin Thatcher who played Bentley Drummle in the acclaimed 1946 version of "Great Expectations" in David Lean's classic film.Comedy could be rather infantile in the 30s.

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!