Displaying items by tag: John Eldridge

LAXDALE HALL

UK, 1953, 77 minutes, Black-and-white.

Ronald Squire, Raymond Huntley, Kathleen Ryan, Sebastian Shaw, Fulton Mackay, Jean Colin, Jameson Clark, Keith Faulkner, Prunella Scales, Kynaston Reeves, Andrew Keir.

Directed by John Eldridge.

A small film from the UK in the 1950s, the kind of film that offered a view of post-war Britain, politics in London, isolated life in the Scottish Highlands (and the Americans retitling the film for accessibility, Scotch on the Rocks!).

The film opens in Westminster, a member of Parliament, played by the always dignified (until he has a slight drunk scene here) Raymond Huntley. He has family connections with the Scottish town centred on Laxdale Hall. The inhabitants are refusing to pay their taxes demanding a better road and port accessibility (scenes illustrating the need). Assisting the MP are a more conciliatory visitor, Sebastien Shaw, and the secretary played by Fulton Mackay, looking very young and nothing like his middle-aged-older look when he was the prison guard continually clashing with Ronnie Barker’s Fletcher in Porridge.

The lord of Laxdale Hall is played genially by Ronald Squire with Kathleen Ryan as his proper daughter. In the meantime, there are all kinds of shenanigans with the locals, who poach fish, the local outspoken church minister, the midwife, the funeral director, the schoolteacher – and she is played by very young Prunella Scales, long before Fawlty Towers.

Most of the screenplay runs as expected, the visitors initially stranded because of a gale, coming to the town, the MP presumptuously giving a speech about moving all inhabitants in land to get industrial jobs and a regular salary but a huge reaction against his proposals. There is hospitality. There is some poaching. There are schoolchildren in classes. And there are a team of poachers on the prowl from Glasgow.

Some touches of romance, especially with the teacher and the secretary. Battle hijinks as the locals all band together one night to attack the Glasgow poachers. In the meantime, MP stranded in a car with a wheel that needs to be replaced, finding a bottle of whiskey and comforting himself during the night with drinking, and to be under suspicion by the police and arrested and handcuffed.

But, there was a pleasant scene with the MP sitting dangling his feet in the river – an indication that he will relent (although the incriminating photo may have some influence). Finally, as he leaves, he gives a speech encouraging the locals and their way of life.

One might say nicely and cosily British.