Give Us the Moon

I didn't get to see all this movie - I channel-hopped in shortly after it began, and was called away by the phone before it finished. Nevertheless, I intend to track down a copy and enjoy this movie in full. A fun plot, superb cast, and clever writing combine to bring this movie above anything you're likely to get from the plastic formula movies that Hollywood makes today. I'm sure that anyone who has ever felt the urge to procrastinate will identify with someone in this movie!

This follows in the footsteps of Val Guest's directorial debut Miss London Limited in introducing a more cosmopolitan flavour to Gainsborough comedies. Certainly not to all tastes then or now, but very funny and enjoyable if you give it a chance. The stars obtain full value out of an original and witty script from Caryl Brahms and her associates. Margaret Lockwood who relished this kind of role as a change from playing wicked ladies is charming and lovely and amusing as Nina, the White Russian who was probably not a princess, and there is real chemistry in her relationship with Peter Graves, an actor I often find rather too smug but whom is excellent as the heir to an hotel chain whom is 'no Joe Lyons'. Of course the most remarkable performance comes from the young Jean Simmons as the fast-talking wise-cracking schoolgirl who almost steals the show. I was surprised to find Vic Oliver's eccentric con-man business so enjoyable while Frank Cellier is excellent as the blustering hotel tycoon. I also liked Roland Culver's languid philanderer, Max Bacon, and the rest of the splendid White Elephants.

I really must have a word with my doctor about my medication; I'm hallucinating again! Already reeling from 'Time Flies', Dr. Goebbels would have been completely floored by this garrulous, fascinatingly awful fantasy set in an imaginary future of ease and plenty (Gainsborough Pictures thereafter largely stuck to escaping into a glamorous past that never existed either in films like 'The Wicked Lady').

Enlivened by the presence of a delightful Jean Simmons making her debut as a delinquent schoolgirl and Irene Handl as her hapless headmistress, every prediction it makes about a postwar Britain in which Stafford Cripps wasn't Chancellor of the Exchequer and there was no Cold War (Margaret Lockward plays a Russian!) is so completely wrong it's fascinating!

What waste of a good cast! Was it ever considered funny?

This was the latest addition to my Margaret Lockwood collection.What a change to see her playing farce as Nina a beautiful Russian girl whose imagination races into overdrive.She is teamed with Vic Oliver who I can only describe seems to be a cross between an Austrian and Groucho Marx.Fortunately Vic spares us his violin playing in this film!!Nina always jumps to ridiculous assumptions before anyone has had a chance to speak and Vic Oliver is the glib mastermind of a group of layabouts who style themselves "The White Elephants" by their refusal to work.I did not recognise the actor playing Peter Pyke the no good wastrel son of a hotel magnate.

All through it reminded me of a British version of a Marx Brothers comedy although there was not a Margaret Dupont character for Vic to play off but there was the usual gullible hotel staff.I feel sure the producers were heavily influenced by The Brothers' antics when commissioning the screenplay.Yes there was some slapstick but for me apart from ogling Margaret Lockwood, I only found it mildly humorous.Comedy can so age over a period of 60 years.