Spring Song

A modestly produced but enjoyable musical that was quite well thought of in its day, but has hardly been seen since until its showing on Talking Pictures today. The likeable Carol Raye, apparently still with us, is charming in the lead in a dual role and excels in modern (1946) musical numbers as well as those of the late Edwardian period in which most of the film is set. Lawrence O' Madden with his Irish brogue is agreeably cast as her father and Peter Graves is good as the rascally undergraduate and his heroic nephew. Carol Raye had only a short career in British films, but appeared in several other enjoyable productions, including another musical, Waltz Time, in which she again co-starred with Peter Graves, and the melodramas Green Fingers and While I Live.

Springtime, aka, Spring Song, 1946, it's a musical, but only because the main setting is in a theatre. It starts in 1946 but soon flashes back to 1911. Peter Graves earns his pay in a dual role, to start with he's a post war RAF pilot, Captain Winster, who has just bought a family heirloom brooch from a charity auction, keen to trace it's past/ journey he goes to the theatre where a J. Ware works, as a singer, the name identified as the donor, thinking it must be Janet Ware he sees her and asks about the brooch. Janet didn't know about the brooch but is intrigued and gets acquainted. Realising it must be her father (Johnny W) who donated the brooch she asks him why he wanted to get rid of it. When Johnny finds out that Winster is a descendant of the wealthy Norchester family he tells Janet not to have anything to do with him, he then recounts the history of the brooch going back to 1911 when his late wife Janet Hill was involved with the well to do Norchester man, an Oxford student and member of the boat race team, he was however a bit of a bounder, a liar and cheat with a gambling debt. Janet's mother Janet Hill, also played by Carol Raye, was besotted by Norchester even though he was no good, meanwhile Johnny had been waiting in the wings (literally) holding a candle of hope that she might one day be his loved one.

Lawrence O'Madden plays young and old Johnny Ware really well , he reminded me of a young Bill Owen.

Was it a case of history repeating itself? Or was this episode in the life of the brooch heading for true romance?.

Lovely performances all round hold it together and the musical interludes don't spoil the story or pace.

Trivia - at the end of the film Captain Winster flies a De Havilland Vampire jet.

Brilliant in the film ' While I Live ' I have wanted to see Carol Raye in another film, and as luck would have it Talking Pictures obliged by showing this gem of a film at six in the morning. I hope they show it to others later in the day as Raye is worth it. Set both at the end of WW2 and at the beginning of the 20th Century she plays both mother and daughter, and the story I will not give away. A beautiful woman she acts to perfection and sings equally well, and there are fortunately songs to be sung. Hans May composed the film score and that too should be remembered. She also worked with Hans May on ' Waltz Time ' and maybe that can be found as well as the other films she made. Innocence is rare in cinema and this film has it. Well worth getting up for.

Further evidence of the wisdom of the day that the British couldn't make musicals, this film has languished in total obscurity since it's original release. This is the first review of this film ever to be posted on the IMDb and it's omitted from John Mundy's 'The British Musical Film', published in 2007.

The problem is it's not even camp enough to linger in the memory. Supposedly set mostly in 1911, it's just a pale black & white shadow of the Hollywood model (which at least would have been in Technicolor) that even as escapism from postwar austerity no one would have bothered to put on a coat and paid their very hard-earned cash to see.

This film was part of the trend towards costume pictures in the British cinema of the forties.The story if familiar is still entertaining,even if the musical numbers were not.