User Reviews

It was slightly surreal to watch this film at the National Film Theatre given that the NFT was itself part of the Festival Of Britain so that today's audience may well have been sitting on the site of the corner shop that was discovered to be right in the path of the development. The drama, such as it is, surrounds the idea that an Englishman's home is his castle - rather timely in the present political climate - so that when the House of Lord's, the quaint name given to their corner shop by Mr (Stanley Holloway) and Mrs (Kathleen Harrison) Lord is threatened with demolition the family barricade themselves in and resist all attempts at eviction. Muriel Box writes and directs well enough and there are sufficient familiar faces - George Cole, Margaret Barton, Naunton Wayne - on hand to provide a warm glow for nostalgics.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Britain's Ealing Studios specialized in wonderful comedies ("The Titfield Thunderbolt", "Passport to Pimlico", "Whisky Galore", et al.) in each of which a group of quirky individuals in a small community would band together against a common threat. If Ealing had made "The Happy Family (Mr. Lord Says No)", it might have been much more fun than it is. Unfortunately, once the basic premise has been stated - a family refuses to sell its house to the government, which wants to demolish it and build a road to the Festival of Britain site - precious little is done with it. The family members (and a housecrashing BBC reporter) barricade themselves in. The government lays siege to the house. The family fights back. The government gives in. That's it, folks. While most of the actors are predictably good, particularly Stanley Holloway, Kathleen Harrison and Dandy Nichols, none of the characters is terribly interesting. There is some toothless satire of the British civil service and of the BBC (both of its representatives come off as queenishly gay, which tells us something of the filmmakers' attitudes to the BBC at the time). The most interesting thing about the film is its literal glimpse at postwar London under construction for the Festival of Britain. Nothing starring Holloway and Harrison can be all bad, and "The Happy Family" is by no means awful, but there's not much to it - and the final moments of the film are too bizarre even for a gag.

The Festival of Britain seems to be remembered fondly today, but it wasn't always the case. While the festival itself was a great success, it was seen in some quarters as a flamboyant political gesture, showing scant regard for the struggles of the British people facing long hours at work, rationing and ever increasing officialdom. The play arrived in time to capitalise on such sentiments and the 'great plan' thwarted at the last minute by a minor blunder by the ever-correct officials bought a knowing smile. Architects who in their efforts to satisfy the political demand to wave the flag of our great nation had inadvertently set Whitehall on a direct collision course with the very apotheosis of Britishness. As everyone knows, England is not only a nation of shopkeepers, an Englishman's home is his castle and some lines cannot be crossed. The play was a success to begin with and Dandy Nichols and Tom Gill reprise their roles in the film, but, the Festival was short-lived and having been an undoubted success, the driving force behind the play also became more than a little lost. Our sympathy remains with the Lords, but unlike 'Passport to Pimlico' which explores similar themes, this is about an ideal rather than a community fighting officialdom, its about one families sentimental attachment to their home. The denouement, when it comes is very much an anti-climax, and without the contextual basis for the humour, the whole thing flounders. It may be an object lesson for budding comedy writers on what to avoid, but aside from the stellar Dandy Nichols otherwise has little to offer to the viewer.