An Alligator Named Daisy **½ (1955, Donald Sinden, Diana Dors, Jeannie Carson, James Robertson Justice, Stanley Holloway, Stephen Boyd, Roland Culver, Margaret Rutherford) – Classic Movie Review 4311

Director J Lee Thompson’s utterly daft, not very witty 1955 British Technicolor comedy An Alligator Named Daisy boasts a pleasant atmosphere and some moderate, simple guffaws, not least through the charming cast’s astonishing ability to entertain so well in such humble, ridiculously farcical circumstances.

Donald Sinden stars as Peter Weston, a budding tunesmith who, while returning home on a steamer, accidentally takes somebody else’s suitcase by mistake and of course, because this is a ridiculous farce, it has got an alligator inside and now he has got to look after it as his pet.

Diana Dors also stars as his rich fiancée, businessman’s daughter Vanessa Colebrook, who doesn’t like Daisy, but luckily for Peter there is an Irish lass, Moira O’Shannon (Jeannie Carson), who does. Daisy goes on to cause predictable havoc at a pet reptile rally.

Dors is particularly amusing, and so is Margaret Rutherford as a pet shop owner called Prudence Croquet. These are two winning turns. One or two musical numbers (The Crocodile Crawl [performed by Ken Mackintosh and his band and vocalists], I’m In Love for the Very First Time [sung by Jeannie Carson], Your First Love Was Your Last [sung by Ronnie Stevens]) are under-realised and on the feeble side, though they add to the general air of jollity.

Jack Davies’s simple but game script adapts a novel by Charles Terrot.

Diana Dors takes a bubble bath in An Alligator Named Daisy (1955).

Also in the magnificent cast are James Robertson Justice, Stanley Holloway, Stephen Boyd, Roland Culver, Avice Landone, Richard Wattis, Frankie Howerd, Jimmy Edwards, Gilbert Harding, Wilfrid Lawson, George Moon, Henry Kendall, Michael Shepley, Charles Victor, Ernest Thesiger, George Woodbridge, Bill Shine, Maurice Kaufmann, Ronnie Stevens, Charles Carson, Martin Miller, Colin Freer, Don Cameron, Patrick Cargill, Joan Young, Cyril Chamberlain, Joan Hickson, Nicholas Parsons, Una Pearl, Tony Selby and Carol White, as well as Ken Mackintosh and His Band.

An Alligator Named Daisy is directed by J Lee Thompson, runs 88 minutes, is made by Group, Raymond Stross Productions and The Rank Organisation, is released by Rank, is written by Jack Davies, based on the novel by Charles Terrot, is shot in Technicolor by Reginald H Wyer, is produced by Raymond Stross, is scored by Stanley Black and is designed by Michael Stringer.

It is made at Pinewood Studios, London, England, with some location filming at London Zoo, Regent’s Park, London and Osterley Park House, Isleworth, Middlesex, England.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4311

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