Displaying items by tag: Henry Cass

FATHER’S DOING FINE

UK, 1952, 83 minutes, Colour.

Heather Thatcher, Diane Hart, Virginia McKenna, Mary Germaine, Susan Stephen, Richard Attenborough, Peter Hammond, Jack Watling, Brian Worth, George Thorpe, Noel Purcell, Ambrosine Philtlpot's, Sidney James.

Directed by Henry Cass.

Very light entertainment, rather dated, interesting only as an example of the type of popular film from the UK in the early 1950s, a farce on screen, and performances by Heather Thatcher and Richard Attenborough.

The film is based on a play, Little Lambs Eat Ivy, by Noel Langley. It is a story of an upper-class British family woman on hard times, the busy mother led by Heather Thatcher in a sprightly, and often exasperated with her daughters, performance, the range of four daughters, the irritatingly adolescent and presumptuous would-be actress, Susan Stephen, the rather quiet Virginia McKenna before her more successful career, the very sensible Mary Germaine, and Diane Hart as the pregnant woman seen only in bed (and not looking particularly pregnant, especially when she gives birth to twins in one of the most rapid and quiet birth sequences).

The anxiety is in the character played by Richard Attenborough, her husband, not really doing fine at all, continually upset, finally finding a pal, drinking, and overwhelmed by the birth and the discovery of twins.

A range of British character actors play the various husbands and partners, George Thorpe is a sympathetic doctor, Noel Purcell is a roguish servant, Ambrosine Phillpotts as a harsh nurse and a cameo by Sid James as a taxi driver.

Observers comment that farce works much better on stage, audiences present to all the bumbling and falling, pratfalls and mistaken identities, embodied in the live performances. Unless particularly well crafted, farces look rather silly on screen.