The Crowded Day

This is a fascinating ensemble film, with many fine performances of the large cast, about people working in a London department store in the early 1950s. As such, it is an important 'social document'. The film was shot in the real London department store of Bourne & Hollingsworth, so that the location and settings are wholly accurate. The film is a mixture of comedy and tragedy, but the comic part of it may have been the origin of the hilarious television series ARE YOU BEING SERVED? (1972-1985), which was one of the funniest comedy series ever made for British television and ran for 69 half-hour episodes. Some incidents in the film, such as the love note dropped on the floor and trampled by the feet of customers so that it does not make its way to the correct person, are studies in the cruelty of fate. Particularly unsettling is the depiction of 'commission stealing' by supervisors from the sales girls under them. Although department stores still exist, at this time they were full of throngs of people, perhaps one should say rampant hordes, since the smaller boutique shops had not yet been invented. Queues of impatient women with shopping bags are shown pouring into the store as soon as the doors open in the morning. Commercialism was also still at an early stage and had hot yet strangled everyone with a lust for things which they do not need. The film features popular leading man of the day, John Gregson, and a marvellous cast of well-known character actors and actresses, including Dora Bryan, Thora Hird, Sid James, Joan Hickson, Prunella Scales, and Dandy Nichols uncredited as a charwoman. Rachel Roberts was in only her second year as a screen actress. The film is ably directed by John Guillermin, well known for numerous important British films, such as the excellent GUNS AT BATASI (1964) and DEATH ON THE NILE (1978); he retired from films in 1988 but is still alive, aged 86. This film is well worth watching, like stepping into a time machine.

The Crowded Day (1954) -

As someone who worked in retail for far too long, I recognised a lot of the events that unfolded in the busy department store depicted in this film, although a lot of the niceties of that time were long gone even when I started. For a start I should imagine you'd be lucky to get tea making facilities these days let alone biscuits or housing.

I was a little bit disappointed that the film wasn't as Christmassy as I'd expected and I wasn't sure that there was enough to the story or that it really showed the chaos of working in a shop during the seasonal period either. There was certainly a lot more that they could have done with it. I'd love to have seen the 'Carry On' team do something like this, because it was a prime opportunity for their sort of jokes.

None of the characters really grabbed me unfortunately though. The on/off again relationship between Peggy (Joan Rice) and Leslie (John Gregson) was farcical and detrimental to others around them without any respect for that, whilst also making her more than a little bit fickle and like a tease.

Meanwhile poor Yvonne (Josephine Griffin), who was the only one I could even vaguely connect with, had a completely contrasting experience with an awful night in the streets making it a very juxtaposed film of two parts. I was unclear whether it was trying to be funny, serious or a blend of both, but it didn't seem to have the balance right.

Just one day in the life of the sales girls as they prepped for the Christmas party just didn't get the message across enough.

Overall it was a kind of something or nothing piece, with potential to have been much more interesting and only touching on issues instead of diving in to them. I don't suppose that I will remember a great deal about it or that it will ever appear in the annuls of film history, but it was inoffensive.

If you do tune in though make sure that you play spot the star, because it was littered with British film and TV royalty.

494.55/1000.

For some reason in the 1950s films that were based on a day in the life of an institution were very popular.This allowed a number of stories to be crammed into 80 or so minutes.Most of this film could be described as romantic comedy with the exception of one story which quite frankly feels rather out of place.John Gregson is the main star and is quite good as the salesman who seems able to bluff his way to a good job.Vera Day seems to be a prototype Barbara Windsor.She is no great actress but has a winning way about her and her scenes with Sidney Tafler are quite funny.However a rather gloomy note is struck by the story of the shopgirl who is going to have a baby but cannot locate the father and who contemplates suicide.Shows how attitudes have changed.In the end she is literally chased into a church by a would be rapist.An interesting look at life in the fifties.

It's the holiday season at a busy London department store, and there are a number of stories, some sad, some funny, but most salacious, on view. A girl breaks up with her boyfriend; he goes away to look for work and she finds herself pregnant. Another girl finds her customers are being stolen by her supervisor. The man who dresses the mannequins keeps fouling up. And so forth.

There is such a welter of plots, some of them left dangling at the end, that this movie lacks focus and plot. As is typical for British movies, the acting is excellent. The direction seems competent, although trivial. The problem seems to lie in the editing, which, as noted above, leaves too many threads dangling.

The lives of shop girls stripped bare. The Crowded Day (AKA: Shop Spoiled) is directed by John Guillermin and adapted to screenplay by Talbot Rothwell from a story by John Paddy Carstairs and Moie Charles. It stars John Gregson, Joan Rice, Freda Jackson, Patricia Marmont, Josephine Griffin, Sonia Holm, Patricia Plunket, Rachael Roberts and Vera Day. Music is by Edwin Astley and cinematography by Gordon Dines.

Bunting and Hobbs Department Store, Christmas week, and the shop girls deal with what life has to throw at them this yuletide season.

A rare British movie that if only for the fine ensemble cast of actors gathered, should see it more widely known. By definition it's a bitter- sweet picture, blending comedy with drama is never easy to do, but the makers here manage to pull it off with some skill. The focus is on the post-war working women of this particular department store, this provides the story with a number of different character threads, all intelligently scripted by Rothwell.

From the heavy duty angle of an unmarried pregnancy and the desperation that can cause, to more lighter themes of jealously as a weapon and getting one's own back on the supervisor, there's enough here to either tug the heart or put a smile on the face. Guillermin does a fine job with his direction, with his camera work very effective for each character strand.

When the story is of the dramatic kind, he (and Dines) brings noir visuals into play, with foreboding shadows reflecting the mood of the players and canted angles enhancing psychological discord. For the more fluffy aspects of plotting, the camera is mobile and breezy, the lighting perky as Christmas comes forth from the screen.

The Crowded Day is a twin axis thing at heart, it shows us all that the holiday season often works on different levels for many. Where some have the world at their feet, others are prone to misery. Food for thought. 8/10

Print I viewed was absolutely pristine, showed on the UK Sky Arts Channel. BFI have released it as part of their Adelphi Collection in a double Blu-ray and DVD package that also contains Guillermin's Song of Paris.