There have been several well made comedies or dramas on the subject of shipwrecks or plane crashes where people from "civilization" discover what it means to really work and create a community. This is one of the better ones, and it's easy to imagine Sherwood Schwartz seeing this and getting ideas for the creative inventions the castaways made on "Gilligan's Island". For example, there's a huge shell that looks like part of an old Victrola, used as you can guess to play records. Even the huts look like something that Ginger and Mary Ann and the Howells would have lived in and decorated as best as they can.
This is the story of the upperclass Loam family and their servants where the head of the family (Cecil Parker) wants to get away when suffragette daughter Mercy Haystead gets into trouble to avoid scandal. She's engaged to the son of the imperious Martita Hunt, the Lady Brackell/Countess of Grantham type whose uppity ways are filled with sardonic wisecracks and an undying sense of propriety. But their being lost at sea makes them declared dead back home, and when they return home, their years away have changed the way that the old upstairs deals with the old downstairs.
Kenneth More is Crichton, the butler, who saves the day and organizes everything on the island, and while there, sensible daughter Sally Anne Howes falls in love with him due to his ability to take charge and make everything run smoothly. It becomes a battle for Crichton between Howes and maid Diane Cilento who has always been in love with him. Their return obviously brings about a bit of scandal and their recalling their unintentional adventure in a way that has truly changed them all for the better.
Colorful both on the South Sea island and that island right across Europe from the English Channel, this is a delightful comedy of manners filled with believable conflict even if some of the situations are a bit far fetched. It is very subtle in its demeanor, and even at their most snobbish, the Loam family obviously enjoys the challenge of having to co-exist with those who have always served them. The imperious Hunt is delightfully funny with her puckered voice making her a force to be reckoned with. Truly a memorable version of J.M. Barrie's play, and a different sort of Neverland.
This is the story of the upperclass Loam family and their servants where the head of the family (Cecil Parker) wants to get away when suffragette daughter Mercy Haystead gets into trouble to avoid scandal. She's engaged to the son of the imperious Martita Hunt, the Lady Brackell/Countess of Grantham type whose uppity ways are filled with sardonic wisecracks and an undying sense of propriety. But their being lost at sea makes them declared dead back home, and when they return home, their years away have changed the way that the old upstairs deals with the old downstairs.
Kenneth More is Crichton, the butler, who saves the day and organizes everything on the island, and while there, sensible daughter Sally Anne Howes falls in love with him due to his ability to take charge and make everything run smoothly. It becomes a battle for Crichton between Howes and maid Diane Cilento who has always been in love with him. Their return obviously brings about a bit of scandal and their recalling their unintentional adventure in a way that has truly changed them all for the better.
Colorful both on the South Sea island and that island right across Europe from the English Channel, this is a delightful comedy of manners filled with believable conflict even if some of the situations are a bit far fetched. It is very subtle in its demeanor, and even at their most snobbish, the Loam family obviously enjoys the challenge of having to co-exist with those who have always served them. The imperious Hunt is delightfully funny with her puckered voice making her a force to be reckoned with. Truly a memorable version of J.M. Barrie's play, and a different sort of Neverland.