This is almost a Warner Brothers pre-code musical. After the heavy censorship of the 1934 production code, scheming scantily clad gold diggers in American films were a thing of the past - fortunately not so in England!
OK, we don't have Joan Blondell, Busby Berkeley or catchy songs but this is as close to an early thirties Hollywood comedy as possible. There's even an English version of Guy Kibbee.
Being a 'chorus girl' comedy, there are more scantily clad, sexy young ladies than you could ever wish for. The humour is witty, fast-paced and quite racy with enough double entendres to make Sid James blush - and as for the name of Lilli Palmer's character - that's like something from an Austin Powers movie!
The plot is straight out of an old gold diggers movie - chorus girls trying to land a millionaire or blackmail a married man after engineering a sexually compromising situation. The quick-fire script is clever and funny especially in the hands of Lilli Palmer and Renee Houston as the cat fighting best friends. Although Margaret Lockwood isn't quite right for this and as a leading man, Hugh Sinclair is hopeless, dependable old Naughton Wayne more than makes up for their shortcomings.
Future superstar director Mr Carol Reed had recently boarded the rapidly sinking ship that was Gaumont British Pictures. Whilst ultimately failing to save the studio, he did make a few entertaining films there like this. They're not too lavish but like this, they're great fun.
Obviously "the proper" pre-code comedies were made with the background of the American Depression to influence the characters whereas this is in pre-war England. Compared with those old WB movies therefore that struggle against adversity, that hope, that blind optimism is missing. As a consequence the characters are not people, they're just characters in a comedy. Without that dimension of reality you can't empathise or engage with them but this doesn't make this less enjoyable. Despite the presence of Carol Reed, this isn't meant to be a fully developed drama, it's just meant to be funny and it certainly is.
Even so, it's a million times better than the pathetic shadows of the originals which Warner Brothers themselves ended up making at the end of the decade.
OK, we don't have Joan Blondell, Busby Berkeley or catchy songs but this is as close to an early thirties Hollywood comedy as possible. There's even an English version of Guy Kibbee.
Being a 'chorus girl' comedy, there are more scantily clad, sexy young ladies than you could ever wish for. The humour is witty, fast-paced and quite racy with enough double entendres to make Sid James blush - and as for the name of Lilli Palmer's character - that's like something from an Austin Powers movie!
The plot is straight out of an old gold diggers movie - chorus girls trying to land a millionaire or blackmail a married man after engineering a sexually compromising situation. The quick-fire script is clever and funny especially in the hands of Lilli Palmer and Renee Houston as the cat fighting best friends. Although Margaret Lockwood isn't quite right for this and as a leading man, Hugh Sinclair is hopeless, dependable old Naughton Wayne more than makes up for their shortcomings.
Future superstar director Mr Carol Reed had recently boarded the rapidly sinking ship that was Gaumont British Pictures. Whilst ultimately failing to save the studio, he did make a few entertaining films there like this. They're not too lavish but like this, they're great fun.
Obviously "the proper" pre-code comedies were made with the background of the American Depression to influence the characters whereas this is in pre-war England. Compared with those old WB movies therefore that struggle against adversity, that hope, that blind optimism is missing. As a consequence the characters are not people, they're just characters in a comedy. Without that dimension of reality you can't empathise or engage with them but this doesn't make this less enjoyable. Despite the presence of Carol Reed, this isn't meant to be a fully developed drama, it's just meant to be funny and it certainly is.
Even so, it's a million times better than the pathetic shadows of the originals which Warner Brothers themselves ended up making at the end of the decade.