Georgy Girl **** (1966, James Mason, Lynn Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates) – Classic Movie Review 5595

Director Silvio Narizzano’s delightfully bright and breezy 1966 British Swinging Sixties comedy drama Georgy Girl showcases a loveable, quite adorable performance from Lynn Redgrave as plain and homely but vivacious mod girl Georgy, who is the object of desire of sugar-daddy James Leamington (James Mason), her father’s middle-aged employer.

Charlotte Rampling is also outstanding as Meredith, Georgy’s glamorous but selfish, Swinging London girl-about-town roommate, and Alan Bates is stylish as Rampling’s lover, Jos Jones, who gets her in the family way. When Rampling’s Meredith wants to give the baby for adoption, Redgrave’s Georgy offers to be surrogate mom.

Narizzano’s wild Sixties visuals shot by cinematographer Ken Higgins emphasise the film’s wacky charm rather than the story’s truthfulness, but it is still very sweet, highly touching and extremely affecting. Despite it being the Swinging Sixties, the moral guardians of the day in Britain complained about its depiction of relationships – showing unmarried mothers and toy-girl affairs – but the film deservedly won much praise, big audiences and four Oscar nominations. Lynn Redgrave won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

It was a hit, costing $400,000 and earning $16.8 million.

Also in the cast are Rachel Kempson (Redgrave’s real-life mother, playing her screen mother Ellen Leamington), Bill Owen, Clare Kelly, Dorothy Alison, Dandy Nichols, Denise Coffey, Peggy Thorpe-Bates, Terence Soall and Jolyan Booth.

The screenplay by Margaret Forster and Peter Nichols is based on Forster’s 1965 novel.

Scenes were filmed in north London, in Belsize Park and Little Venice, including outside a canal-side house on Maida Avenue.

The four Oscar nominations are Best Actress (Lynn Redgrave), Best Supporting Actor (James Mason), Best Cinematography – Black-and-White (Kenneth Higgins) and Best Song (Tom Springfield music and Jim Dale lyrics).

The cast are Lynn Redgrave as Georgina “Georgy” Parkin, James Mason as James Leamington, Alan Bates as Jos Jones, Charlotte Rampling as Meredith, Bill Owen as Ted Parkin, Clare Kelly as Doris Parkin, Rachel Kempson as Ellen Leamington, Denise Coffey as Peg, Peggy Thorpe-Bates as Hospital Sister, Dandy Nichols as Hospital Nurse, Dorothy Alison as Health Visitor, Terence Soall as Salesman, Ian Dunn as Baby Sara, and Jolyan Booth.

The Seekers enjoyed a top ten hit with the cute and catchy title track ‘Georgy Girl’, which reached number two (Billboard chart) and number one (Cashbox chart) in the US, number one in Australia and number three in the UK. Tom Springfield, who had written The Seekers’ 1965 UK number one hit ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’, composes the music and Jim Dale writes the lyrics. The song is heard at the beginning and end of the film with different lyrics (the commercially released version has other different lyrics). It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to ‘Born Free’.

Judith Durham (3 July 1943 – 5 August 2022) became the lead singer of The Seekers in 1963. The group became the first Australian pop group to achieve major chart and sales success in the UK and the US and have sold over 50 million records worldwide. She left the group in mid 1968 to pursue her solo career.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5595

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