Fantaisie viennoise

The other Englishman abroad is Arthur Riscoe in the first of two comedies with songs by imported Italian director Carmine Gallone in which Riscoe and Naunton Wayne (looking hardly any younger than he did in 'The Lady Vanishes' but here wearing glasses to make him look nerdier) arrive in Vienna and scheme against each other to get to first base with Romy Schneider's mother's Magda rather as Bing & Bob did with Dorothy Lamour the 'Road' movies.

(SLIGHT SPOILER COMING: Like the third season episodes of 'Batman', the film ends on a cliffhanger when our heroes board a plane for London at the end only to discover they've accidentally caught a flight to Venice; thus setting up the second and final Jack & Jim jaunt, 'For Love of You'.)

I'm inserting reviews for films that lack one... this showed last month on satellite station talking pictures, but no one else has taken the plunge so here goes... A couple of English chaps touring the continent both fall for the same girl, who they try to make into a musical star, that's about it plot wise! In the cut 1 hour version it doesn't outstay it's welcome, there are a few musical numbers, but the only notable name involved is Naunton Wayne who played 'Caldicott' one half of the cricket mad pair of characters, that featured in a few superior British films in the decade ahead; I will watch any old British film that comes my way, on that low level of expectation this is OK! But I couldn't help thinking, 1933, the Americans were making 'Flying Down to Rio'! But though I have great fondness for British films, they nor anyone else ever got close to the standard of the great American musicals.

This is not a good example of a 1930s British musical. Compared with Gaumont's or Hollywood's musicals, this shabby effort from Herbert Wilcox's B+D Pictures looks cheap and tacky. The only amusing thing about this is its title.

Naughton Wayne and Arthur Riscoe simply don't work as a comedy double act - well, not today anyway. It seems incomprehensible to a modern audience that these two were a popular act back then but this was the pre Will Hay era. For a film like this to resonate with an audience, you need to engage with the characters - that's impossible with this - nobody is remotely real or believable or indeed likeable.

There should be chemistry between these two mates: the loud northerner and the stuffy southerner. Don't think Lee Mack and Tim Vine in Not Going Out, the impression you get here is that these two people hardly know each other. Although when they decide to rent a one bed bedroom together, you might wonder if that title was a little more clever?

Despite its crippling budget, director Carmine Gallone still keeps the (tedious) story moving along with lots of outside scenes. Clearly some of those scenes were filmed silently with conspicuous voice-overs added later. It also looks like a different grade of film was used for the outside shots which adds to the general shabbiness of this. One clever innovation which does work however is replacing the back projection behind a car driving through town (which never looks good) with a travelogue type montage.

Unless you've accidentally suffered the sequel to this (yes, they actually made another one!) and want to know what these two dull men were up to before, there's no reason to watch this. It paints a false impression of 1930s cinema and anyone watching this will never want to see another black and white film ever. The characters are unauthentic, Magda Schneider's screen presence is atrocious, the script sounds as natural as flat-pack instructions translated from Chinese and as for the so-called musical - Sweet Mother of Mercy!

This came out at the same time as Warner's GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933! Giving a more home-grown comparison, this came out at the same time as Gaumont's EVERGREEN! I could watch either of those anytime so it beggars belief that thousands of people chose to see this garbage.