Be My Guest

A follow up to Lance Comfort's 1963 David Hemmings musical 'Live It Up'. He had been making bricks without straw for the past ten years before this, his last and one of his least productions before his early death the following year aged just 58.

It's not a patch on 'Live It Up', but Comfort went to the trouble of going to Brighton to shoot it. And in addition to Jerry Lee Lewis and an incredibly young Steve Marriott the cast also boasts an engaging cameo by Monica Evans just before she became famous on Broadway as Cecily Pigeon in 'The Odd Couple'.

Grouchy Ivor Salter inherits a guest house in Brighton from his aunt, so he moves the entire family out. With a wonky furnace, a son, David Hemmings, who keeps chasing dancer Andrea Monet, and a surly cook-housekeeper-furnace engineer in Avril Angers, he tries to make changes and update the place, but there's little money to do so. Meanwhile, Hemmings gets a job on a local newspaper, only to discover he's low pole on the totem pole.

Lance Comfort's next-to-last movie -- he died the following year at the age of 58 -- tries to raise interest for a young audience by putting in several rock acts, which become a plot point towards the end of this slightly-plotted movie. The pre-invasion sound of the British acts is pretty much like their American counterpoints, and the musical interludes are fit into the movie diagetically. If you like this sort of music, you'll enjoy it.

In The US it is hard to find but this movie has two things worth seeing. First is Jerry Lee Lewis' great performance. This was filmed at the peak of his career and has a song never offically releases. Second Steve Marriott of the the seminal bands The Small Faces and Humble Pie is one of the stars. He is very young here and his performance is a bit different then his tough RnB stage persona. It is too hard to find film of the Small faces period but this gives you a little glimpse of their main force before stardom. He is very innocent and almost boyish here how different. Oh the movie itself has a bad plot and bad acting but hey this is a cool film anyhow.

In this film you can get to see a number of quite obscure bands, plus the Nashville Teens and Jerry Lee Lewis performing an unreleased on vinyl song. A typical British early 1960s pop film, its best points apart from the music are appearances by young David Hemmings and Steve Marriott. Good also to see The Zephyrs performing in the film.

Towards the start of the film The Plebs are among the list of bands appearing, but at the end they are not shown in the list of songs. Are they in the film, if so where please??

Fascinating to see David Hemmings in a Film so different from those Carnaby films. Set in Brighton with a young Steve Marriot quite innocent yet good to go.