Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1945 (from May 1945)
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1972
- Notes to the Text
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Film Titles
- General Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1945 (from May 1945)
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1972
- Notes to the Text
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Film Titles
- General Index
Summary
Why were aeroplanes being built in the studio where the put-upon Mr Ruggles was trying to make a major British musical film? Did the hammering never stop?
London TownUnder New Management
Lisbon Story
George in Civvy Street
Gaiety George
I’ll Turn to You
Meet the Navy
Amateur Night
Piccadilly Incident
London Town
Spring Song
The Laughing Lady
Walking on Air
February
The generous contribution of the Mancunian Film Corporation to the nation’s welfare had catapulted George Formby to prominence with two cheaply produced entertainments, Boots! Boots! (1934) and Off the Dole (1935), after which he never darkened Mancunian’s doors again. Although the company would not find another performer with so much potential, Mancunian went on building modest pictures around some of the most dependable comedic artistes of the 1930s and beyond, among them Nat Jackley, Norman Evans, Sandy Powell, Betty Jumel, Douglas Wakefield, Tessie O’Shea (like Formby, an enthusiast for a ukulele), and, most prominently, the uncontrollably anarchic Frank Randle. A regular repertoire of actors peopled Mancunian’s ‘Somewhere’ series begun in 1940 with Somewhere in England, followed by Somewhere in Camp and Somewhere on Leave, both in 1942, and, very much along the same lines, Demobbed (1942). Unashamedly offered as low comedy, the usually pantomimic proceedings were often flavoured with musical items provided by such middle-of-the-road purveyors of culture as husband-and-wife team Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, and piano duettists Rawicz and Landauer; such acts threatened Mancunian productions with something similar to sophistication.
The first post-war product, Under New Management, proved that even Mancunian could come up with a neat title that might as well describe the times, had the advantage of a well-established, tightly knit team that worked almost as a family made up of people who knew what sort of pictures its customers wanted, and knew how to make them. At the helm was the untiring John E. Blakeley, not the finest of British film-makers but certainly one of the least pretentious. Nevertheless, the young Blakeley aspired to greatness, and under the umbrella of Song Films Limited produced twelve two-reel ‘Cameo Operas’ in the 1920s, the bravest of enterprises before film sound had been officially invented.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Melody in the DarkBritish Musical Films, 1946-1972, pp. 5 - 27Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023