Bond Street ** (1948, Jean Kent, Roland Young, Kathleen Harrison, Derek Farr, Hazel Court, Ronald Howard) – Classic Movie Review 13,247

The amusing 1948 British portmanteau drama film Bond Street is based on a story by Terence Rattigan, and stars Jean Kent, Roland Young, Kathleen Harrison, Derek Farr, Hazel Court and Ronald Howard. 

Director Gordon Parry’s 1948 British portmanteau drama film Bond Street is based on a story by Terence Rattigan, and stars Jean Kent, Roland Young, Kathleen Harrison, Derek Farr, Hazel Court and Ronald Howard.

A quartet of loosely linked short stories, two of them rather funny, and two of them rather dreary, make up this picture of London’s supposedly poshest street and the people who inhabit it. It is civilised antique entertainment.

The film follows the secret story behind a bride’s dress, veil, pearls and flowers purchased in London’s Bond Street, The stories involve the impending wedding of the society young woman Julia Chester-Barrett (Hazel Court) to Frank Moody (Robert Flemyng), a deliberately torn dress, a man ripping his trousers and getting a lunch date with the seamstress, and a man trying to avoid a love interest from Denmark.

The two wedding tales are fun, with Roland Young a delight as the bride’s father George Chester-Barrett and Kathleen Harrison amusing as the bridal-gown seamstress Ethel Brawn. But the others, with Derek Farr as a murderer and Patricia Plunkett as a handicapped woman who refuses to believe that her husband (Kenneth Griffith) is no good, tend to drag.

As with most portmanteau films, Bond Street is a curate’s egg, but two hits out of four is not bad, and lively turns from a host of familiar favourite British Forties film faces could make it right up your street.

It is Ian Carmichael’s debut.

Producer Anatole de Grunwald brought Czech actress Paula Valenska (2 July 1922 – 26 September 1994) to Britain to star in two films. The other is Golden Arrow (1949).

Portmanteau drama films were in vogue, e g Quartet (1948).

Producer Anatole de Grunwald and writer Terence Rattigan would later revisited portmanteau dramas in the Sixties for Anthony Asquith’s The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964).

The cast are Jean Kent as Ricki Merritt, Roland Young as George Chester-Barrett, Kathleen Harrison as Ethel Brawn, Derek Farr as Joe Marsh, Hazel Court as Julia Chester-Barrett, Ronald Howard as Steve Winter, Paula Valenska as Elsa, Patricia Plunkett as Mary Phillips, Robert Flemyng as Frank Moody, Adrianne Allen as Mrs Taverner, Kenneth Griffith as Len Phillips, Joan Dowling as Norma, Charles Goldner as Waiter, James McKechnie as Inspector Yarrow, Leslie Dwyer as Barman, Aubrey Mallalieu as Parkins, and Darcy Conyers as Bank Clerk.

Bond Street is directed by Gordon Parry, runs 109 minutes, is made by De Grunwald Productions, World Screenplays and Associated British Picture Corporation, is released by Associated British-Pathé (UK), is written by Anatole de Grunwald, Terence Rattigan and Rodney Ackland, is shot by Otto Heller and Bryan Langley, is produced by Anatole de Grunwald, and is scored by Benjamin Frankel.

Release date: 25 May 1948 (London).

Budget: £163,629. Box office: £155,312 (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,247

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