Fools Rush In ** (1949, Sally Ann Howes, Nora Swinburne, Guy Rolfe) – Classic Movie Review 10,899

Director John Paddy Carstairs’s 1949 British black and white wedding comedy Fools Rush In stars Sally Ann Howes, Guy Rolfe and Nora Swinburne. Sally Ann Howes is the angel who fears to tread on the day of her marriage.

Fools Rush In is a far too easy-going film version of Kenneth Horne’s old-fashioned (even then) and thinly developed 1947 play about an impulsive young woman called Pamela Dickson (the amiable and appealing Howes) who leaves it until the day of her wedding to an understandably confused Joe Trent (Nigel Buchanan) to rethink her plans, having just read the marriage vows and freaked out.

Her long-lost father Paul Dickson (Rolfe) arrives for the wedding and surprises her when he turns out to be polite and pleasant rather than the cad and bounder of memory. Though still in love with Joe, she calls off the wedding, upsetting her mother (Swinburne), who is planning to marry Sir Charles Leigh (Raymond Lovell) and move to Peru.

Can Pamela to figure out if she can live with Joe and can she get her mother to reconcile with her father (Rolfe) before the 82 minutes is up?

Despite its pleasant tone and well-meaning spirit, and extra dialogue for the film by Kenneth Horne, director Carstairs turns in a rather weak, slackly handled, erratically paced comedy, though nevertheless the 18-year-old Howes is charming and the decent cast is able to make enough waves.

Also in the cast are Nigel Buchanan, Raymond Lovell, Thora Hird, Patricia Raine, Nora Nicholson, Peter Hammond, Charles Victor, Esma Cannon, Guy Verney, Jonathan Field, David Lines and George Mansfield.

Fools Rush In is directed by John Paddy Carstairs, runs 82 minutes, is made by Pinewood Films, is released by General Film Distributors (1949) (UK), is written by Geoffrey Kerr, based on Kenneth Horne’s play, is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Unsworth, is produced by Aubrey Baring, is scored by Wilfred Burns and is designed by Edward Carrick.

The title accesses a line from Alexander Pope’s poem An Essay on Criticism, first published in 1711: ‘For fools rush in where in angels fear to tread’.

It is made at made at D&P Studios and Pinewood Studios, London, England.

Kenneth Horne (28 April 1900 – 5 June 1975) was an English writer and playwright, not to be confused with popular radio comedian Kenneth Horne.

The play must have been considerably more substantial, as it is called Fools Rush In: A Comedy in Three Acts.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,899

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