I realize that Sally Ann Howes was only thirteen when this was shot, and that it was her debut on film. But I'm afraid she's terribly scrumptious. Let all men acknowledge the maniac within.
The director, Rodney Ackland, must know it too because the film opens with a woman who appears to be a housewife, dashing about, straightening things preparatory to a visit from someone important. She rushes to the staircase and shouts for Fennis to hurry up. "Yes, Mommie," and Fennis' long bare legs appear on the screen. That's all we see of Fennis for the moment. Those shapely and exquisitely palpable limbs in very short shorts. Gulp, and then she dashes back upstairs to finish dressing. Now, I ask you -- who's kidding whom? In the very next scene, we have an attractive blond running around, also getting dressed, in lingerie that I don't even have a word for. The top part is like a slip but the bottom part ends in loose shorts. The blond is shapely too. I tell you, it's disgusting. It's prurient. You would never see pretty girls running around in their skivvies in an American movie of the period.
In a later scene, in the beauty shop where she works, the blond, Phoebe, in a moment of exasperation, at least has the DECENCY to say, "Oh, heck," instead of, "Oh," -- well, something else. As I think the world must know by now, Americans think nothing but morally pure thoughts. And as a man of firm Coptic beliefs, I'm always sure to carry a bible around in my shirt pocket. That bible has stopped two bullets from reaching my body, so far. A rather large medallion of St. Christopher stopped a poison dart in the jungles of Borneo. Damned Wogs.
Anyway, the blond, Phoebe, is dying to get into the movies so she visits the casting director at a studio, taking Howes along with her. The director's Gofer spots Howes in the waiting room and after a brief, rude, appraisal, hustles her in to meet the director. And what a character the director is -- he reclines on a sofa like Nero, he's wildly unkempt, the bit of hair he has is a fright wig, his default expression is revulsion, he has a Hitchcockian figure, and he has Wagner's "Burgermeister von Nürnberg" turned up full blast on the gramophone. When Howes objects that she can't hear anything, the director shouts, "Turn dzah wecord OVER!"
That first scene in the movie, when Ackland shows merely the legs of the principal actress, is not a one-off. The direction is skilled throughout. At one point, in Howes' meeting with the director, the camera focuses on one flabby hand rising slowly and then imperiously flicking its fingers as he orders her out of the room. She's finally hired at fifty pounds a week. Unusual but effective camera angles show up periodically. Howes has some important scenes on that staircase. I'm tempted to read symbolism into it but it's too much trouble.
It's really a quietly comic film, despite Howes' stuffy and truculent father, Wilfred Lawson, who went on to unforgettable humorous effect in later films like "Tom Jones" and "The Wrong Box," in which he was the staggering butler. None of the characters is really "bad."
However, there's is some distress generated because Phoebe, Howes' older sister, wanted a part in the movie and didn't get it. Disappointment ensues. The star of the movie condescends to Howes in an insulting manner. Then the studio hypes Howes' "official biography" by turning her into a rich girl who rides and owns wolfhounds. Howes is a candid and forthright girl and objects to much of this. Felix Aylmer is the arid studio boss. He runs everything. He hires and fires people. He must be a very agreeable studio head because whatever he says, everyone nearby agrees with him.
The film turns dramatic towards the end and loses some of its charm. The focus is blurry. Is the old patriarchal system disappearing? Is a woman justified in developing a case of ambition? In any case, the director ends with a choker close up of Howes' smiling, angelic face and she gazes from the train's window on her way to a new life, joyous and unrestrained, at a stern Scottish boarding school.
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