29 Acacia Avenue [The Facts of Love] *** (1945, Gordon Harker, Betty Balfour, Carla Lehmann, Jimmy Hanley, Jill Evans, Hubert Gregg, Dinah Sheridan, Megs Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 13,481

‘Another Adult Delight!’ The likeable and amusing 1945 British comedy-drama film 29 Acacia Avenue [The Facts of Love] stars Gordon Harker, Betty Balfour, Carla Lehmann and Jimmy Hanley.

‘Another Adult Delight!’

Director Henry Cass’s likeable and amusing enough 1945 British comedy-drama film 29 Acacia Avenue [The Facts of Love] stars Gordon Harker, Betty Balfour, Carla Lehmann, Jimmy Hanley, Jill Evans, Hubert Gregg, Dinah Sheridan, and Megs Jenkins.

The teenagers’ nightmare of parents coming home early from a holiday is pleasantly played out in this hit British domestic comedy with an unusually complicated set-up. It’s a ménage-à-quatre, or à six or à sept, if you count the parents and the maid.  Jimmy Hanley plays Peter Robinson, who falls in love with the naïve country young woman Fay (Carla Lehmann) and the worldly, wealthy and already-married Joan (Jill Evans), and lives with both of them, as well as Joan’s husband, at his parents’ house.

Gordon Harker and Betty Balfour play the Robinson parents, the old couple who set out for the Mediterranean but only get as far as to Bognor Regis on the south coast of England. Their daughter Fay (Carla Lehmann) is planning a trial marriage and their son (Jimmy Hanley) is pursuing divorce proceedings so he can get hitched to the married woman Joan (Jill Evans). Megs Jenkins re-creates her stage role as Shirley, the maid with troubles of her own.

With a canny screenplay by Muriel Box and the film’s producer Sydney Box, based on a play by Mabel and Denis Constanduros, this rather corny, stage-bound outing perhaps fails to take off fully as a movie. But its comedy situations and lines are pretty good, and, above all, the spirited, exuberant performances from a rare vintage cast easily save it, actually make it quite endearing. Gordon Harker, Betty Balfour and Megs Jenkins are delightful, and Carla Lehmann and Jimmy Hanley are nice company too.

Release dates: May 1945 (UK) 30 October 1949 (US).

It was released in the US as The Facts of Love.

It is made at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London.

It is the final film of ‘Britain’s Queen of Happiness’ Betty Balfour, made after a gap of nine years, though she lived till November 4, 1977. She is best known for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1928 comedy Champagne (which also stars Gordon Harker).

The cast

The cast are Gordon Harker as Mr Robinson, Betty Balfour as Mrs Robinson, Jimmy Hanley as Peter Robinson, Carla Lehmann as Fay, Hubert Gregg as Michael, Jill Evans as Joan, Henry Kendall as Mr Wilson, Dinah Sheridan as Pepper, Megs Jenkins as Shirley, Noele Gordon as Mrs Wilson, Guy Middleton as Gerald, Aubrey Mallalieu as Martin.

29 Acacia Avenue [The Facts of Love] is directed by Henry Cass, runs 83 minutes is made by Boca Productions, is released by Columbia Pictures Corporation (UK) and Oxford Films (US), is written by Muriel Box and Sydney Box, is shot in black and white by Ernest Palmer and Robert Huke [Nigel Huke], is produced by Sydney Box and Compton Bennett (associate producer), and is scored by Muir Mathieson (musical director).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,481

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