Dear Octopus **** (1943, Margaret Lockwood, Michael Wilding, Celia Johnson, Roland Culver, Athene Seyler, Helen Haye, Frederick Leister) – Classic Movie Review 11,070

Director Harold French’s 1943 Gainsborough Pictures British black and white comedy drama film Dear Octopus [The Randolph Family] stars Margaret Lockwood and Michael Wilding, along with Celia Johnson, Roland Culver, Athene Seyler, Helen Haye and Frederick Leister.

Dodie Smith’s 1938 theatrical workhorse play about a family reunion for couple’s golden wedding is given a most satisfactory and entertaining airing on film.

The pleasant young leads Lockwood and Wilding give pleasing performances, but are outshone by scene-stealing acting from Helen Haye and Frederick Leister as the well-to-do family golden couple Dora and Charles Randolph at whose country home three generations of their family assemble to celebrate and squabble.

Lockwood plays family secretary Penny Fenton, who has to tackle the family’s hostilities and jealousies, while Wilding plays Nicholas Randolph. Roland Culver as Felix Martin, Athene Seyler as Aunt Belle and especially Celia Johnson as the couple’s companion and amateur secretary Cynthia also score strongly in the acting department. Being a play adaptation, there is a heavy cargo of dialogue, but the lines are very amusing and telling, at least here with this cast. It is character and amusement driven, with plotting taking a back seat.

The Octopus of the title refers to the family, whose tentacles its members can never escape.

Dear Octopus opened at the Queen’s Theatre London on 15 September 1938, starring John Gielgud, Marie Tempest and Angela Baddeley. When the Second World War began in September 1939, the run was halted after 373 performances. After a run in the provinces in early 1940, the play was brought back to London, playing two further runs until 31 August 1940. The play was revived in London’s West End in 1967, with Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert.

Perhaps because it is an ensemble film and not a star vehicle, Lockwood remembered it in a poor way. Lockwood recalled: ‘There had been some trouble over the script of this film. Neither my agent nor I had considered the part which was offered to me sufficiently good. After much arguing, my part was built up, but even so I was not pleased with the film, and felt that for me it had been a backward step.’ She made it after her hit The Man in Grey in spring 1943.

Also in the cast are Helen Haye, Frederick Leister, Celia Johnson, Roland Culver, Athene Seyler, Basil Radford, Nora Swinburne, Jean Cadell, Kathleen Harrison, Antoinette Cellier, Madge Compton, Ann Stephens, Muriel George, Irene Handl, Graham Moffat, Jack Leslie, Amy Dalby, Sidney Young, James Lomas, Leonard Sharp, Jack Vivyan, Virginia Vernon, Bobby Bradfield, Barbara Douglas, Noel Dainton, Helen Goss, Thelma Rea, Frank Foster, June Gill-Davis, Henry Morrell, Arty Ash, Pamela Western, Arthur Denton, Annie Esmond, Evelyn Hall, Alastair Stewart and Derek Lansiaux.

Dear Octopus [The Randolph Family] is directed by Harold French, runs 86 minutes, is made by Gainsborough Pictures, is released by General Film Distributors (1943) (UK) and English Films (1945) (US), is written by R J Minney (writer), Patric Kirwan (writer) and Esther McCracken (adaptation), based on Dodie Smith’s play, is shot in black and white by Arthur Crabtree, is produced by Edward Black and scored by Hubert Bath and Louis Levy (musical director), with Art Direction by  John Bryan.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,070

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