It's Never Too Late

Phyllis Calvert has her hands full as Laura Hammond the mum that everyone relies on. Her middle-class family, all living together, include her irascible mother, stepdaughter Tessa (Susan Stephen) a drama queen in more than one sense; also stepson John (Richard Leech) and his wife (Sarah Lawson) who have a baby and enjoy throwing household objects at each other at regular intervals. Her older husband (Patrick Barr) seems at his most active when reading the paper, but still manages to attract the attention of the attractive single lady next door. They all take Laura for granted, but don't realise that her 'scribbling' whenever she gets the odd five minutes from the chaos surrounding her, has produced a best-seller. Enter a literary agent (Guy Rolfe) who whisks her off to the US to work on a film script.

Of course, the conventions of the Fifties dictate that the traditional order has to be restored in the end, and though the ways in which all is resolved tend toward the predictable, there's considerable fun along the way. The early scenes, mainly confined to one set, are smoothly directed by Michael McCarthy, who was sadly to suffer an early death. The colour photography is excellent. Phyllis Calvert might not always have been convincing as the heroine of exotic melodramas, but as a woman like Laura in a comedy of this nature, she couldn't be bettered. Nothing bears any resemblance to life today, but then that's not the least of the film's charms.

This film is based on a play.You can see the 3 separate acts without difficulty.It is all very bland,and vaguely amusing.The story is very familiar,an unlikely famous novelist who is taken for granted by all her very selfish family .The best scene comes at the beginning of the film where a bemused Sam Kydd stands between the two arguing lovers.