Love in Waiting

Peggy Evans, Elspet Gray and Patsy Drake take jobs as waitresses in a stodgy restaurant. Between the shy manager, David Tomlinson, the handsome garbage boy, John Witty, and the scrounging copper Andrew Crawford, who lives in the apartment below them, isn't love inevitable? The problem is that someone has been stealing food from the kitchen and selling it on the black market.

I don't know who first came up with the plot of three girls sharing an apartment and looking for husbands. Usually, they're predatory young women trying for rich men to marry, but these three young women aren't anywhere near as mercenary. They're happy enough to get home at night and take off their shoes. In short, it's a very mild and pleasant variation on the matter, with the usual obvious and nasty villain to make an appearance.

There's a very very sequence towards the end, where police inspector Johnnie Schofield is trying to interrogate the three women serialism, only to be confounded by their patent honesty and the vigorous lack of support of his unwanted and unwilling sergeant Crawford. it's typical of the entire movie: nothing in the least novel, but carried off well by a skilled crew of farceurs.

This film comes from Highbury Studios.It was known as the charm school,with the idea of producing actors who would be taught the skills needed to be a film actor.Most actors were never heard of again.However David Tomlinson was on his way up.In fact this was one of 7 films he appeared in during 1948.The reason this film was made was because of the ad valorum tax slapped on American films by the government. So the American companies sent no new films to the UK.Rank was encouraged to fill the gap with films such as this.This modest production was designed as a supporting feature.The theme of the black market was very much a talking point at the time.

Patsy Drake is Mary, and the film starts off with her at a train station, buying a one way ticket to London. Then flash to her step-father and some bloke who are discussing Mary and how this bloke is pegged to be the man's son-in-law (ie. suitor for Mary). Then Mary's mother rushes in with the news that she's run away to London, the step-father races off to catch her, and we never see him again, so god knows what happens to him between their house and London!

Now, we meet Gloria and Brenda, who are working in a dress maker's shop, and both manage to get fired (in an hilarious scene with an old lady who's not quite the figure she used to be..) So these two are out looking for a job when they see a sign wanting "refined young ladies, which is SO not them, but then Golly (Gloria, Golly for short) gets her heel caught in a grate, and it breaks off and that's the last straw; they're darn well gonna be refined ladies! So they walk into the office where Mary is waiting for her interview, and bang, a beautiful friendship is born (including later on the natural invitation for Mary to move in with them) Mary's had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep since she ran away, so the others take her to get some food when they've been waiting 15 minutes and no interviewer has showed up. Except when they walk through into the restaurant, Gladys (seems to be the head waitress) sees they've come from the interview office, assumes they are new waitresses, and gets them all kitted up before they can say a word! The movie moves along smoothly and very humourously (their neighbour, a cop, seems to be always over borrowing things, which the other 2 girls neglected to tell Mary!) until we find out that food has been sold on the black market, and it seems to all be coming from that very restaurant! And since Golly, Brenda and Mary are the only new girls since this has begun, they are dragged in for questioning, and wouldn't you know it but the cop next door is the detective's righthand. And when everyone finds out that these 3 girls never had an interview, the plot can only thicken...

Keep an eye out for the manager, he's Mr. Banks from Mary Poppins, just 20 years younger (and he looks it!), and remember that almost no one is what they first appear to be.

I loved it! 10/10, and it's a pity Patsy Drake wasn't in more films.