Young Wives' Tale

I bumped up the user rating on this film to 8/10 as I was disappointed to see it rated so low at 5.2/10.This 1951 film is mainly acted out on one set - a suburban house - so I suspect it was again another filmed stage play.The plot concerns the marriage teething problems of two couples who share the same house, Joan Greenwood (Sabina Pennant), Nigel Patrick (Rodney Pennant) and Helen Cherry ((Mary Banning - Sabina's elder career minded sister), Derek Farr (Bruce Banning).

After WWII in Britain many married couples had to live with their parents (or in-laws) as mortgages for owner occupied properties were very difficult to obtain then.Many houses had been blitzed and the Government started a "prefab" scheme to rehouse poorer occupants.I was born in 1946 and was therefore 5 years old when this was filmed but I can empathise with the post war economic problems having lived then as a child.

The main problem for ex-actress Joan Greenwood (mother to a 2 1/2 year old son) is to find a reliable nanny after the first one (Fabia Drake) leaves "in a huff".Likewise career mother, Helen Cherry, is mother to a young 2 year old daughter.As Sabina is getting stressed out coping with all the housework (laundry/food preparation/child care etc.), her sister finds a veritable treasure replacement nanny (Athene Seyler) whom she finds in the park.Due to a silly misunderstanding concerning morality with the nanny, the couples have to pretend to be married to each other.

The farce is further complicated by the addition of two friends who regularly pop into the house, Guy Middleton, (Victor Manifold), who is close to Sabina and a 22 year old Audrey Hepburn (Eve Lester), who is close to Rodney.Of course there are pretend affairs, rows, reconciliations in true farce style.The acting is professional rep. standard.This was the first time I had seen this film and I enjoyed it immensely.

This is one of those mediocre British farces from the early 1950s were every one rushes around talking as loudly as they can in the hope that the volume of their speech will make up for the paucity of wit contained in the script.The leading pair are Nigel Patrick in an unusual domestic role,for him anyway,and the delectable Joan Greenwood,who had recently starred magnificently in Kind Hearts and Coronets.Supporting them adequately are Helen Cherry,Guy Middleton and Athene Seyler.However the main matter of note is the featuring of Audrey Hepburn who would not long be constrained by her contract with Associated British picture Corporation.I doubt that she remembered this film with any fondness.

Sabina (Joan Greenwood) and Mary (Helen Cherry) are both married sisters who also have a child each of a similar age.

Sabina is a former actress now a young housewife married to writer Rodney.

Meanwhile both Mary and her sedate husband Bruce go out to work.

It leaves Sabina to look after the house and cook for them all. There is a nanny that cares for the children but she leaves when Bruce is rude to her.

To remedy the situation, Mary quickly finds a replacement and this time they pass both the kids off as siblings.

Later for some unfathomable reason. Sabina ends up kissing two men, one of them being Bruce.

This annoys both Mary and Rodney who ends up kissing lovelorn lodger Eve (Audrey Hepburn.)

This is a middle class farce that is not funny and very much of its time. It is very sedate probably due to the censorship laws of the time.

I had no idea why Sabina ended up kissing the other men and I expected both Mary and Rodney to be enraged.

There was no social commentary here. The house was spacious when it was meant to demonstrate the post war housing crisis.

Sabina was not much of a housewife, unable to cook for four adults when she had a nanny to mind the kids.

This is a movie version of one of those brittle post-war stage farces, originally written by Ronald Jeans. Given then-current housing shortages, two couples -- Joan Greenwood & Nigel Patrick; Derek Farr & Helen Cherry -- are sharing a house. Each has one toddler, and only Miss Greenwood as dogsbody for the menage. Given her super-posh accent, she is an absolute flub at it, but she does get to show some athleticism as she leaps from one disaster to the next. When Miss Cherry locates a decent nanny for the children in the person of Athene Seyler, everyone thinks for a moment that the situation is saved, but for the purposes of the plot, they tell her the children are siblings, and she believes Miss Greenwood is married to Mr. Farr. The usual comedy of misconstruction ensues, carried on by speed and the abilities of the cast. Alas, the effort never quite opens up beyond its stage origins.

Movie fans will want to see this for a sizable supporting role by Audrey Hepburn. She plays a young woman who has a room in the house and whose salient quality is she is terrified of men. Although her character connects loosely with the plot at several points, I had the distinct impression that at some stage of the movie's origins -- perhaps before the play actually opened -- the role was actually much larger. Now it is largely vestigial, even if it is the main reason the movie is remembered.

This damaged film was probably only recovered because it has a young Audrey Hepburn, way down the credits list. There are quite a few missing frames after 00:35. The film itself, adapted from a wordy radio play, is a domestic farce-drama with two middle class couples living in a supposedly crowded but seemingly spacious house in the suburbs during the postwar housing shortage. No doubt on the wireless - for which it was originally written - it could have sounded suitably claustrophobic and drab. However the cinema was about fantasy, and the producers decided to set in the film in what would have been considered at the time fabulous middle class luxury. No attempt was made to adapt it for that change. They look for a nanny - even though one of the women has no job and could presumably look after two children - and this and an absolute rotter in an Austin Atlantic lead to a dreadful situation. Product placement - Lux soap flakes.