The Good Companions

If you have seen the original 1933 version of the Good Companions then you will understand why I say that this is a vastly inferior remake.True it is in colour,but if anything it detracts rather than adds to the film.In any event by the time this film was$ made concert parties had virtually died out.The two leads are very poor.Jeanette Scott cannot sing or dance which makes her appearance rather pointless.John Fraser is an inadequate leading man.The film differs from the original in a number of ways,all to its own disadvantage.There is the tacked on show at the end which is truly dreadful and represents all that is worst in fifties British musicals.So not surprising that in the final credits it is the dancers who take the top credits.Definitely not one of Associated British Pictures better efforts

This remake of the thirties Jessie Matthews/John Gielgud musical has a lot of charm due to its lovely colour, excellent songs, and a strong cast (good roles for Celia Johnson, Eric Portman, Joyce Grenfell, Hugh Griffith, Bobby Howes, Rachel Roberts, John Fraser and of course Jeanette Scott and her mother Thora Hird; smaller showy roles for Anthony Newley and John Le Mesurier). The last few musical numbers towards the end of the film match many of Hollywood musical efforts around the same time, but the fact that the film is British gives it a heart and a sense of fun sometimes lacking in American polish.

How this wretched outdated film was made is a total mystery. I have not read the Priestley book and have no desire to, but somehow it caught a great deal of attention. The film mystifies me that Celia Johnson, Eric Portman and Janette Scott wanted to be in this overblown, Cinemascope disaster. I cannot write more as I watched this film hoping to feel better after an illness, but it just made me want to throw something at the screen. That said a lot of talent was used to make it, and the beginning ( for about half an hour holds the attention but it completely falls apart after that. ) The more inflated the talentless group of travelling music hall became the more improbable the whole concept of the film became. !957 was a year of rapid change in culture and to have made this work someone of sense should have set it as a period piece. And even then I doubt if it could have worked. Really not worth watching if you come across it.

Remake of a charming 1933 Jessie Matthews vehicle, in turn adapted from J.B. Priestley's then-current novella, this trifle about a traveling music hall troupe is inflated beyond its natural proportions and turned into a vehicle for up-and-coming Janette Scott, as Susie, the ambitious, supposedly wildly talented young thing pursuing fame while fighting off the advances of John Fraser, an unprepossessing juvenile. Some friendly people turn up-Joyce Grenfell, Celia Johnson, Eric Portman, Hugh Griffith, Anthony Newley-and the big musical numbers attempt a Hollywood-type lavishness. But the sad fact is, Janette Scott is neither much of a singer nor a dancer, and when you see the audience going mad for her modest warbling and stepping, you wonder why. She's sweet, with a Debbie Reynolds sort of innocence and chipperness, and she probably melted some British schoolboys' hearts. But she's nothing to mount a big musical around, and J. Lee Thompson, soon to inflict himself on Hollywood, is not a natural musical director. A couple of good sequences, and lots of touring-the-hinterlands atmosphere, but not much else.

I considered "The Good Companions" simply made and entertaining, as was the novel. The actors were well cast and each played their part to perfection. It was unusual for a British studio to 'try' a musical at that period of time, and I think it came off pretty well. For me it is an unexpected, delightful offering such as "Curtain Up".