Lady Godiva Rides Again

The movie industry turns out one of those "It's not easy in the moom pitcher business" movies every few years, like A STAR IS BORN, and this Launder-Gilliat production, made during the slide of the 1950s is their contribution to the field. Pauline Stroud is hectored into taking part into a local beauty pageant. This leads to a glamour competition, which she wins, when Diana Dors doesn't want to take time out from her more profitable life to accept the prize of a 3-month studio contract. Miss Stroud thinks she is on the road to stardom.... but the industry is full of chiselers and ineffectual nice guys down on their luck, while she is too mousy and moral to do more than flounder and sink.

There are plenty of interesting players, from Dennis Price and Miss Dors, to surprising unbilled cameos like Alastair Sim and Googie Withers; the beauty contestants are starlets who would become prominent over the next couple of decades, like Kay Kendall and Joan Collins. It's the dourest of comedies that could manage a general release, while never releasing its hold on the audience's attention.

Alastair Sim, Diana Dors, Stanley Holloway, Dennis Price, George Cole and Sidney James in this Girl's Own story about a drippy young woman in the midlands chosen in a beauty pageant in Westbourne (Blackpool) to advertise soap. All the actors play their respective characters, Diana Dors as a bad girl in the pageant, Stanley Holloway as the avuncular father, Dennis Price as a philandering film star, George Cole as a ingenuous working class piker, and Sidney James as a dodgy geezer running a strip show. But it doesn't really save the contrived and well worn plot.

Marjorie Clark is a very pretty girl from a hard working family, she doesn't ask for much in life. Yet after what seemed to be a pointless beauty pageant she is transported into the realm of stardom, a sequence of events that brings wealth, respect, and the unwritten pitfalls of fame............

If i'm totally honest here, then the only reason i came across this film was because at this moment in time i'm on a mission to see any film that has the names of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat attached to it. I saw that Dennis Price, Sid James, George Cole, Diana Dors, Stanley Holloway and Alistair Sim were in the cast list, British institutions one and all, yet still i had low expectations with it. I had never heard of it before, my parents are both staunch British cinema fans, they have surely never put this one my way, it's rated just above five right here on IMDb, yep, i certainly wasn't expecting much.

Perhaps that is why i enjoyed it so much?, i mean don't get me wrong here, it's not one i will go back and revisit, but the performance of Pauline Stroud as Marjorie Clark and the dark undertones of the plot make this something of a must see piece. The perils and the highs and lows of a pretty girl with stars in her eyes, has rarely been so poignant as it is here, the film has some splendid comedy moments, and also has a lovely little romantic core, but chiefly it's the downturn of events that is the scripts crowning moment. I would wager that IMDb tagging this as a genre comedy only is a big error, but cest la vie, they own the site, and i'm but a mere user!. Fans of Alistair Sim and Sid James should note that their parts in the film are pretty thin, so seeking this out for those actors will leave you feeling pretty flat, but hopefully, there may be something i have written that will pique your interest when you are stuck for an intelligent comedy/drama from the Great part of Britain. 7/10

Footnote:There is some wonderful, and quite creepy trivia attached to the film, if that has you intrigued then i point you to the user comment for this film written by Jeremy Beadle!!!, it's not hard to find since at this moment in time there be only four of us who have bothered to write a comment for the film!!.

I have read all the other user comments after watching this film billed as "Lady Godiva Rides Again" but shown on IMDb.com as "Bikini Babe" (1951) on London Live TV network today.My main interest was seeing an early screen appearance of Bernadette O'Farrell playing a minor part.She was mostly known for playing the maid Marion in the 1950s TV series 1&2 "The Adventures of Robin Hood" which starred Richard Greene and for playing a Miss Harper in "The Happiest Days of your Life" (1951).

I have remarked in my previous reviews of the aforementioned adventure series what a startling facial resemblance she bore to the late Jennifer Jones, all of whose films I possess on video &/or DVD.The lead who played the "wannabe" actress and Diana Dors I never found attractive on screen.It was a pity Bernadette had to marry Frank Launder and give up her film career so early as I would have liked to have seen her in other roles. Barely adequate at 4/10 and what a let down for the audience as we don't see Lady Godiva riding her white horse on stage naked even though at the time the lord Chancellor insisted at the time nude models had to kept perfectly static on stage!!

Made in the year of the Festival of Britain, this film is prefaced by a warning that it "Contains mild innuendo, cultural depictions of the era".

Pauline Stroud has long served as one the great warnings to aspiring actresses since she vanished almost without trace after playing the title role in this film, but actually aquits herself well and shows considerable cow-eyed charm.

Diana Dors as a hardened pro is supposed to be the film's glamour girl, but compared to the lovely Kay Kendal (wasted in a small part) she comes a very poor third; while harsh reality intrudes in the form of a predatory Dennis Price and Eddie Byrne's observation that life in austerity Britain for most girls consists of "seven years to live and then the kitchen sink!"