Car of Dreams

This film was shown about 30 years ago on BBC. It has just been shown on London Live. It is a delightful film. John Mills in his matinee idol days. Grete Mosheim may not be the best of the German actresses in exile who came to this country in the thirties but she has a rather endearing disposition, not withstanding her difficulty with English. With the support of Robertson Hare and some pleasant tunes this is a very entertaining musical.

Intriguing mild (very mild!) British musical comedy. Noteworthy mainly for the eponymous car (a Rolls Royce Phantom III coupe - those were the days when you get a RR PIII and still get change out of £2,000...) and some Brirish film stalwarts. The hero is a youthful John Mills near the start of his cinematic career; Robertson Hare has a supporting role, both trying to inject some life into a leaden script. The rather clunky back projections give some fascinating glimpses of 1930s London and the Lake District.

(Purists might quibble why the heroine (Grete Mosheim)has a German accent while her "sister" has a "cut glass" English accent) RW

John Mills is a young bachelor, almost ready to give up on women. They know he's due to inherit a trombone factory, and just want him for his money. Then he suddenly becomes infatuated with a girl in the street (Vera), whom he follows into a Rolls-Royce showroom, not realising that she's a penniless fantasy-shopper who likes to act as though she's on a spending spree. Her friend Molly (played by Glennis Lorimer, used for years as the face of Gainsborough Pictures) chides her for her silly habit, and gets her a job working alongside her in the trombone factory.

In the showroom, Mills secretly arranges to buy the latest model and then pretends that it has been gifted to Vera as the lucky 10,000th visitor. But he overdoes the gesture, using his influence as the boss's son to organise a hefty pay-rise for Vera, which the other girls resentfully view as an exchange of favours. (She is the only one who doesn't know Mills' identity.) So everything goes wrong before anything comes right.

You could pin the date 1935 on this film without being told. The showroom manager shows John Mills how to drive a car in just a few brief gestures. (Driving-tests started later that year.) There are unconscious touches of Fred Astaire, with scenes of luxury life as deliberate escapism from the economic depression. Also of Wodehouse, who spent this year in Hollywood, exerting a surprisingly strong influence on screenwriting. Vera is played by a newly-arrived German-Jewish refugee Grete Mosheim, who must have felt at home with the songs by fellow-exile Mischa Spoliansky that pepper the story harmlessly enough. Even the use of back-projection, to provide unrealistic scenes of happy touring in the Rolls, is firmly of its time.

A light snack with no pretensions of being anything more. And good of its kind.

I will freely admit that "Car of Dreams" is a very silly piece of fluff. Yet, despite its flaws, it's also a nice and enjoyable film. My advice is to stick with this one--it starts off slow but ends very well.

Grete Mosheim plays Vera--a very odd lady indeed. She loves to fantasize about having money and likes to go to shops and pretend she's loaded with cash. However, because she has none, she never buys anything--just pretends. One day, she's admiring a Rolls Royce--and once again, acting like she wants to buy the thing. However, her little game backfires, in a way, because the son of her employer (John Mills) meets her and is infatuated--and arranges for her to get the car for free (claiming she's won some prize). However, even after meeting him, she has no idea Mills is the factory owner's son--she just thinks he's a nice guy. But, things get VERY complicated when they begin to date and he decides to help her by raising her salary. Her coworkers know who he is and they think she does, too. And, since she's gotten a huge raise, they begin to believe she's his mistress! Where all this goes is just something you'll have to see.

While it was disconcerting at first to see and hear John Mills singing, he wasn't too bad and the songs were quite catchy. And the plot played a lot like a good American screwball comedy-romance. Pleasant characters, a very well-written plot and a real likability of everyone makes this a hard film to hate--even if it is, at times, very silly.

This isn't anything particularly special but if you fancy a fairly funny, good-natured and well made typical English mid-thirties rom-com, this is for you. It won't make you laugh but it will make you smile.

Don't worry that the story is completely crazy - nobody else involved does. The absurd silly humour feels typically English and yet this is actually based on an earlier Hungarian film. Perhaps that Englishness is because it was adapted for G-B by Stafford Dickens (no relation) who did a few Will Hay and Jessie Matthews comedies.

You're likely to forget this a couple of hours after watching it but - assuming you like daft old English comedies particularly silly farces and Will Hay as opposed to the slightly more sophisticated (and often un-funny) Ealing comedies - you'll enjoy it while you're watching it.

For what it is, it's absolutely fine and delivers a happy and cheerful mood straight into your head and into your heart. You also get to hear why you don't see John Mills singing in anything else! And one thing which does make this unique it it gives you a rare chance to see the former toast of Berlin's theatre scene (until the Nazis took over), Grete Mosheim in her only English speaking picture.