Mad About Men

I never saw MIRANDA but this is a lively sequel to that film with GLYNIS JOHNS again playing the saucy mermaid with her usual charm.

Glynis is a flirtatious mermaid who takes the place of a schoolteacher for a couple of weeks, determined to find a better husband for her than the stuffy fiancé she's engaged to. They resemble each other greatly because, as "Miranda" describes it, they're both descended from the mermaid side of the family.

It's utter nonsense, played to the hilt by a cast intent on making it reasonably funny but only partly succeeding.

MARGARET RUTHERFORD overplays the role of a dotty nurse who looks after the mermaid and is in her element in over-the-top fantasy farce. DONALD SINDEN is a wealthy man Miranda has her eyes on as a possible husband for the schoolteacher.

It's filmed in garish looking color (unusual for a British film which usually featured muted color), but the charm begins to wear off fairly early as the plot gets sillier and sillier.

Summing up: Mermaid comedies are not my cup of tea and this one is sillier than most, especially when the mermaid's inability to walk is compensated by some weak plot contrivances which has her being carried around by the men with her mermaid tail barely concealed under a thin blanket.

Trivia note: Interesting to see JOAN HICKSON as the owner of a lodge, long before she became Jane Marple for British TV.

I saw both this film and it's predecessor the charming "Miranda" in one sitting late at night and have to say I found both delightful. But the second in the series was a little bit more fun.

I don't know if the censorship was loosened between the two films but in Mad About Men , Miranda's character is far more suggestive and the jokes and sexual banter is far more risky (though nothing compared to today's standards.)

As with the 1st film, this one really shines when we see the women reacting to Miranda's siren ways and of course Margaret Rutherford as the natty nurse Carrie is splendid as always.

Mermaids make great movies, there should be more of them!

Miranda is a nice mermaid who speaks perfect English. She meets up with a human who is her exact double. Apparently a distant relative had "relations" with a mermaid and this supposedly accounts for them looking 100% the same (a plot element only seen in movies and "The Patty Duke Show"). This nice mermaid and her nice counterpart decide to let Miranda pose as the other lady for a fortnight--during which time Miranda chases after men with wild abandon.

I am not a huge fan of the first mermaid film starring Ms. Johns (MIRANDA), though it was an amiable time-passer. Oddly, despite it being a very "small" film, a few people on IMDb gave it a score of 10, though I notice that the scores for this follow-up film, MAD ABOUT MEN, were not so inflated. This is really odd as both films are very similar and it's really a coin toss to decide which is the better picture. Interestingly enough, this sequel came 8 years after the original film. Also, while I have not seen it, apparently Ms. Johns made a brief cameo appearance as the mermaid in another film (HELTER SKELTER). So, overall, the film is charming and worth a look--just don't expect magic.

'Mad About Men' is every bit as good as 'Miranda', although it doesn't pick up the pace until at least a third in. Caroline Trewella has gone to stay at her Cornish cottage for a few days when she meets her distant cousin, Miranda. Miranda wants to go back on land, so Caroline agrees to let her take her place whilst she goes out cycling with a friend. And the first thing Miranda does is to decide that Caroline needs a better fiancee!

The colour looks a bit garish on Glynis Johns but Anne Crawford and Donald Sinden look lovely. Dora Bryan is also hilarious as Miranda's annoying little companion, who upsets the applecart on every possible occasion. The basics are the same as in 'Miranda' although the ending is definitely a little neater. 9/10

This is quite an enjoyable vehicle for a mischievous Glynis Johns, who doubles up as a gymnastics teacher ("Caroline") who is left a remote house on the Cornish coast, and a mermaid ("Miranda") who lives with her equally cheeky friend "Berengaria" (Dora Bryan) in a cave underneath. The two characters have a common ancestor and look identical, so when "Caroline" heads off on a cycling trip, her mermaid cousin takes her place - and immediately starts to charm just about every man in the village. Many of us who recall later performances from (Sir) Donald Sinden may forget just how handsome he was as he falls for her; as does "Col. Barclay Sutton" (Nicholas Phipps) whose fiancée "Barbara" (Anne Crawford) tires of the endless flirtations and sets about trying to put a spoke in her wheel. Margaret Rutherford is her usual, ebullient, self as the enthusiastically game nurse who is in on the whole thing from the start. It's amusingly suggestive at times, and the dialogue quite witty but the film is way too long, and once the joke has worn off it drags a bit. It is better, I felt, than the rather more rigid, staid original from 1948 however, and well worth a gander.