Chance of a Lifetime **** (1950, Basil Radford, Niall MacGinnis, Bernard Miles, Julien Mitchell, Kenneth More, Geoffrey Keen, Josephine Wilson, Patrick Troughton, Hattie Jacques) – Classic Movie Review 8635

Strikers take over the running of their small factory making tractors and ploughs from their pompous big boss Dickinson (Basil Radford), in co-writer/ co-producer/ director Bernard Miles’s entertaining and thoughtful 1950-style anti-authority comedy drama Chance of a Lifetime.

Naturally, alas, the workers (Niall MacGinnis, Bernard Miles, Julien Mitchell, Kenneth More and Geoffrey Keen as Baxter, Stevens, Morris, Watson and Bolger) find out that it is not easy to run the show after Stevens and Morris are elected to take over the management. Naturally, alas, also the workers become disgruntled with management all over again, and a large order falls through, but then Dickinson’s old management comes back to help out.

Films about factory labour relations are understandably rare. The original screenplay is by Walter Greenwood and Bernard Miles, but it has echoes in the 1949 Passport to Pimlico, as well as in the later The Angry Silence (1960).

Both the Rank and Associated British cinema chains refused to show Chance of a Lifetime, saying it was too political and would annoy employers. The Ministry of Labour and the British Employers Confederation were also against the film. Harold Wilson, then chairman of the Board of Trade, argued for the film in the British Cabinet, which then used the 1948 Film Act to ensure it was shown on a major cinema circuit and it was distributed by British Lion Film Corporation.

Chance of a Lifetime is just a shade short on power, but the themes are fascinating as it sheds light on Britain in the era, and it is written and handled with much care and intelligence. The sprightly performances from the British reliable actors, with Radford in his element, and the then fashionable location shooting (London and Tetbury, Gloucestershire) always hold the attention. It was a 1951 BAFTA Film Award for Best British Film, but The Blue Lamp won.

Among the faces of the workers, the familiar features of Peggy Ann Clifford and Sam Kydd stand out, as well as Amy Veness as Lady Davis, Josephine Wilson as loyal secretary Miss Cooper, Patrick Troughton as Wilson and Hattie Jacques, who plays welder Alice. She could do her own welding, as she had done this work during World War Two.

Chance of a Lifetime with Bernard Miles.

Also in the cast are Niall MacGinnis, Geoffrey Keen, Julien Mitchell, Kenneth More, Hattie Jacques, Josephine Wilson, John Harvey, Russell Waters, Patrick Troughton, Amy Veness, Compton MacKenzie, Peter Jones, Eric Pohlmann, Gordon McLeod, Bernard Rebel, Eric Pohlmann, Stanley Van Beers, Norman Pierce, Nigel Fitzgerald, Alastair Hunter, Molly Palmer, George Street, Stanley Rose, Erik Chitty, Leonard Sharp and John Boddington.

The composer Noel Mewton-Wood committed suicide in 1953 aged only 31 by drinking prussic acid, blaming himself for the death from a ruptured appendix of his lover William Fedrick.

Josephine Wilson, known for The Lady Vanishes (1938), South Riding (1938) and The End of the Affair (1955), was married to Bernard Miles. They founded London’s Mermaid Theatre together.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8635

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