I Lived with You

Ursula Jeans meets a very elegant, very Russian Ivor Novello. He's broke, so she takes him home to her family's middle-class house, until he gets back on his feet. That will be a problem, because he's a Russian prince, and so not fitted for anything. All he has is a few sets of jewels worth thousands of quids. Since they were gift from the late Tsar, he can't spend them on himself. He can spend them on his new family, whose settled, decent lives he turns topsy-turvy.

It's based on Novello's stage hit, and director Maurice Elvey does a fine job of opening it up, with a camera that moves, quick cuts, and close-ups. there are some wonderfully silly scenes, like the one where Novello gets the local snobs drunk on vodka-laced tea. Yet the serious segments are curiously at odds with the crazy-comic ones; they are two sets of stage conventions that do not mix well.

It's a bit odd to see this out of Twickenham. That production company had been built on a series of quota quickies, subsidized by American companies who needed British production to play alongside their imported movies to comply with British law. the larger British integrated studios found the small studio useful for providing cheap second features to run in their big houses. the problem was that owner Julius Hagen had grown weary of the thin profit margins, and aware of the immense profits from A productions. So he cut back on the bread-and-butter productions and tried for prestige... and found himself shut out by the big, integrated companies, in Britain and the U.S.

What fun this movie is! And splendidly restored. Ivor Novello is such a charmer, and the story very entertaining. To anyone interested in 30's movies or especially the great Ivor Novello, this surely is a must.

Yes, it's strange that the son of the family vanishes early on, as though the radio spirited him away to another continent! I wonder if it was the same in the original stage play - perhaps the young actor had to leave early to get to bed at a sensible hour! Why would no-one notice the youngster was missing when this film was edited? Perhaps there was to be some vital broadcast on the radio that we've now missed?

Well, I didn't even notice the youngster went missing, I was so enjoying the rest of the movie.

I for Novello was principally a stage actor and he only made a handful of film appearances in the sound era.In fact it has to be said watching this film that he looks every bit the stage star.Every time he appears on screen the focus is really on him.He plays a Russian Prince who has found his way to London with a cache of priceless jewels.He is discovered at the maze at Hampton Court by Ursula Jeans who decides to take him home to her parents home where he is invited to stay.This disrupts everyone including young her boyfriend,an impossibly young Jack Hawkinns and her younger sister,Ida Lupino.He is used by the film as a sort of device to solve all of the characters problems,not the least being that of Elliott Markeham who has becomec romanticallybinvolved with his secretary,who is determined to take him for all that he has.

I've never seen Ivor Novello like this before. Everything I've seen him in always seemed hammy, melodramatic, and over the top but here he is in a comic role and throwing out lines like Paul O'Grady - he even looks a bit like him. Quite a revelation. Mr Novello was gay at a time when you couldn't be out in the open about it apart from in theatrical circles and, even though this isn't a gay character he's playing, his performance is quite camp. I don't know how well this film did at the box office but I know this was quite a successful play on stage in London's West End. It's a shame he didn't do more films like this.

I approached I LIVED WITH YOU with trepidation. While Novello had appeared in 16 silent films, where his beauty and ability to act with good direction stood him in good stead, from his RAT trilogy to his two films with the budding Alfred Hitchcock. Talkies, however, were a different ball game. He made only six. His second, THE PHANTOM FIEND, was a remake of his silent Hitchcock film, THE LODGER, and he was just awful, as was the film, over-acting and emoting all over the studio sets. His next, a turgid melodrama with Ruth Chatterton, ONCE A LADY, gave him only a brief supporting role in twelve scenes.

I LIVED WITH YOU is an adaptation of his own play, in which he starred on stage, and it is a revelation. Very funny, very well crafted, with great lines and astute observations of character and mood. Ursula Jeans is perfect as the good daughter, Gladys. Ida Lupino in her fifth film is unrecognizable, she is so fresh, minor her later mannerisms in voice and posture.

The whole cast is full of great character acting and in the middle is Novello, totally charming and totally believable as a romantic Russian prince whose involvement in the lives of a poor but happy British family, upsets their lives in many ways. Later films to use this idea of a stranger entering family lives and changing them for ever were mainly comic (MY MAN GODFREY, MERRILY WE LIVE), but often moving and thought-provoking (BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING).

Novello has lost all of his theatrical mannerisms and theatrical emoting. He is fresh, funny and ultimately very moving. Facial and vocal expressions are fit and apt to the sound film. I've never seen a better performance of his and the film is absolutely wonderful.

Seek it out!