Trouble with Eve

Low budget period piece, not without charm. Very obviously a stage play, you can just imagine the entrances and exits from the main set. All the conventions of British farce are there, the male lead loses his trousers in the first twenty minutes.

Hy Hazell moves into a town that prides itself on being the most moral in Britain. She plans to open a tea shop, but Robert Urquhart and Garry Marsh come by to inform her she has to fill out a lot of paperwork. Fortunately Urquhart and Miss Hazell fall instantly in love. He proposes to do all the forms himself. He also plans to propose marriage, but Miss Hazell's ditzy daughters, Sally Smith and Brenda Hogan show up, and their exuberant behavior is misunderstood not only by Urquhart, but the nasty neighbors.

At this point I am supposed to write that hilarity ensues, but this modified stage play is performed far too broadly to be particularly funny, and not exuberantly enough to be amusing. Uquhart spends his time wilting, Miss Hazell's daughters and their men fall into every lap, and Miss Hazell alternates between despair and calm mother-knows-best lectures. It might have worked on the stage, but it doesn't on the screen.