Half a Sixpence *** (1967, Tommy Steele, Julia Foster, Cyril Ritchard, Penelope Horner) – Classic Movie Review 4660

The H G Wells’s 1905 novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul was filmed in 1941 by director Carol Reed as Kipps. Much later in 1963, it became the stage show Half a Sixpence in London’s West End as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele, opening at the Cambridge Theatre on 21 March 1963.

Steele transferred it to Broadway in 1965, where the show played for 511 performances, and afterwards also starred in this movie musical version of Half a Sixpence (1967).

The genial Steele sings and dances his way blithely and skilfully through director George Sidney’s amiable 1967 British musical about the orphaned draper’s assistant Arthur Kipps, who inherits a fortune when grandfather dies and moves into the top rank of society. Kipps falls in love with the snobbish society lady Helen (Penelope Horner) but he becomes re-acquainted with the serving maid Ann (Julia Foster), his friend since they were children.

With the book and screenplay by playwright Beverley Cross, skilfully adapting the Wells story, the words are well taken care of. The movie itself comes across as an overblown piece of whimsy, but it is handsomely produced, attractively photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth and generally well set up, and it is greatly helped by the exuberant lead performances (Steele, Foster, Horner and Cyril Ritchard as Harry Chitterlow) and the lavish attention to period detail in the production designs by Ted Haworth.

Other assets are David Heneker’s tuneful and amusing music and lyrics, especially the showstopper ‘Flash Bang Wallop’, and the bright choreography by Gillian Lynne (Cats). The ace American musicals director Sidney provides plenty to please the eye when the drawn-out story starts to flag.

Also in the cast are Elaine Taylor, Hilton Edwards, Pamela Brown, James Villiers, Grover Dale, Julia Sutton, Leslie Meadows, Sheila Falconer, Christopher Sandford, Jean Anderson, Allan Cuthbertson, Aleta Morrison, Gerald Campion, Deborah Parmentor, Jeffrey Chandler, Barry Sinclair, Bridget Armstrong, James Bolam, Sydney Bromley, Lesley Judd, Harry Locke, George Moon, Julian Orchard, Queenie Watts and Mark Colleano.

Sidney is director of Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, Bye Bye Birdie and Viva Las Vegas.

Impresario Cameron Mackintosh financed and produced a re-written stage version of Half a Sixpence, which opened in July 2016 at the Chichester Festival Theatre and transferred to the Noel Coward Theatre in London’s West End on 17 November 2016.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4660

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