French Dressing ** (1964, James Booth, Marisa Mell, Roy Kinnear, Alita Naughton, Sandor Elès, Bryan Pringle) – Classic Movie Review 9078

Director Ken Russell’s first feature French Dressing (1964) is a British satirical seaside farce with Marisa Mell as a French starlet taken up by Gormleigh-on-Sea’s deckchair man and lady reporter as the local kind of Brigitte Bardot character when they decide to hold a film festival to promote their sleepy resort.

James Booth, Roy Kinnear and Bryan Pringle (the mayor) do their reliable turns, and Russell whizzes it all along. A strange debut movie for Ken Russell, it is not exactly subtle or witty, but still it is fast paced, amiable and fairly amusing. It does have the sex scene and film festival aspects that link it to Russell’s later work, though.

TV personality of the day Robert Robinson (1927–2011) appears briefly as himself. He has lines to say!: ‘Where will all of it end? Apache dancing in the Floral Halls? Absinthe in the ice-cream parlours?’ When he insisted on writing all his own dialogue (uncredited), Russell readily agreed, telling him he could write everyone else’s dialogue, too, if he wished.

Producer Kenneth Harper felt disappointed and the script was constantly being rewritten throughout the making of the film. The studio finally agreed to distribute the film on a small release in 1964 after the sudden popularity of James Booth in Zulu. Russell happily attended the London premiere but found the audience disliked the film and he left the after party to spend the night drinking in various local bars before passing out in the street and being woken up and moved on by a copper.

Also in the cast are James Booth, Roy Kinnear, Sandor Elès, Marisa Mell, Bryan Pringle, Henry McCarty, Alita Naughton, Germaine Delbat, and Norman Pitt.

It is shot at Herne Bay, Kent, England, (standing in for Gormleigh-on-Sea, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France (exterior scenes of the film within the film) and Le Touquet, Pas-de-Calais, France, between May and July 1963.

It runs 86 minutes, cut from an original work print of 100 minutes.

Russell agreed French Dressing wasn’t very funny but claimed it had a quality of poetic melancholy he was quite pleased with. He said had a miserable time making the film, that the title was ‘just about the dirtiest word in the business’ and that he expected he would never be allowed to direct another feature, and even announced he would never make another one.

French Dressing is directed by Ken Russell, runs 86 minutes, is made by Associated British Picture Corporation and Kenneth Harper Production [Kenwood], is released by Warner-Pathé Distributors (1964) (UK) is written by Peter Myers (original story and screenplay), Ronald Cass (original story and screenplay), Peter Brett (screenplay) and Johnny Speight (additional dialogue), is shot by Kenneth Higgins, is produced by Kenneth Harper and Andrew Mitchell, is scored by Georges Delerue and is designed by Jack Stephens.

It was released on DVD by Network (2015) (UK).

Manhattan-born Alita Naughton died in London on 10 January 2019, aged 76,  totally forgotten. She receives an ‘introducing’ credit as Judy, but, although she has nice funny girl looks and is appealing, her film career went nowhere. Russell also cast her as Journalist in his 1966 TV film Isadora, her only other film.

Robert Robinson is remembered for Picture Parade, Points of View, BBC-3, My Word, The Book Programme, Ask the Family and Call My Bluff. He reviewed films on the popular radio show The Critics and was the film critic of the London Sunday Telegraph in the mid-1960s, sacked after disliking a movie liked by the wife of the newspaper’s proprietor.

On 22 August 2008, Russell returned to Herne Bay to introduce an outdoor screening of the film in the Memorial Park as part of the Herne Bay Festival 2008.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9078

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com