Climbing High *** (1938, Jessie Matthews, Michael Redgrave, Noel Madison, Alastair Sim, Margaret Vyner) – Classic Movie Review 8102

Carol Reed directs a Jessie Matthews musical comedy way back in 1938, and this surprising early experience must have been good training for his directing Oliver! thirty years later.

Director Carol Reed’s 1938 movie Climbing High is a pleasant little musical comedy, with Michael Redgrave also starring as a rich catch called Nicky pretending to be a poor model to win Diana (Matthews) because she is in modelling herself, though he is already engaged to gold-digging aristocrat Lady Constance (Margaret Vyner). To justify the title, mountaineering in Switzerland is also on the agenda, and, in the slapstick comedy department, so are a pie fight and National Undies Week.

Thanks to the bright Matthews and Redgrave turns, plus Reed’s sprightly handling, Climbing High is an amusing vintage escapist piece of froth, successfully so despite an unusually troubled production.

It started off in April 1938 as the musical Asking For Trouble, directed by Sonnie Hale, and starring Jessie Matthews, Kent Taylor, and Noel Madison, but was abandoned. Gaumont British studios kept delaying its start, original co-star Kent Taylor went back to America, several songs were cut, and Matthews upset studio boss J Arthur Rank by making him leave the set, after which her career tumbled. Climbing High proved the end of an era for her, and for Sonnie Hale.

Terry-Thomas provides the voice of the cow, Kathleen Byron appears as the model on a sofa after a pie fight and Leslie Phillips has a bit part.

It was shot at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England.

Also in the cast are Noel Madison Alastair Sim, Mary Clare, Francis L Sullivan, Enid Stamp-Taylor, Torin Thatcher, Tucker McGuire, Basil Radford, Athole Stewart, Elsie Wagstaff, Jack Vyvyan, Frederick Piper, Charles Paton, Percy Parsons, Gordon McLeod, Philip Leaver, Fred Groves and Leo de Pokorny.

Climbing High is directed by Carol Reed, runs 80 minutes, is made by Gaumont British Picture Corporation, is released by MGM (UK) and Twentieth Century Fox (US), is written by Lesser Samuels (scenario, adaptation, dialogue), based on an original story by Lesser Samuels and Marion Dix, is shot in black and white by Mutz Greenbaum, is produced by Michael Balcon, is scored by Louis Levy (musical director), and is designed by Alfred Junge and Walter W Murton.

The costume design is by Norman Hartnell, who also later made dresses for the Queen.

In 1938 Jessie Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was Britain’s fourth biggest star. But her popularity fell dramatically in the Forties after several years’ absence from films, and post-war audiences associated her with the pre-war world of luxury at odds with austerity-era Britain.

Reed is also the director of The Third Man, The Fallen Idol, The Stars Look Down, Night Train to Munich, The Young Mr Pitt (1942), Bank Holiday, The Way Ahead, The Stars Look Down (1940), Odd Man Out, Kipps, Our Man in Havana and Trapeze.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8102

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