Keep Smiling ** (1938, Gracie Fields, Roger Livesey, Mary Maguire) – Classic Movie Review 11,601

Lancashire lass Gracie Fields gets the glossy 20th Century Fox treatment in director Monty Banks’s 1938 British comedy musical film Keep Smiling [Smiling Along], an amusing if undemanding tale of the mishaps that befall a troupe of travelling concert performers.

The manager Bill Sneed (Joe Mott) runs off with the company’s cash, so Miss Fix-It Gracie Gray (Fields) arranges a coach and sets up a tour doing shows around the country, with backing from pianist René Sigani (Peter Coke), who falls for troupe dancer Avis (Mary Maguire).

Dame Gracie Fields (born Grace Stansfield; 9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979) .

The star’s energy and the Fox budget help to raise the fun a couple of notches.

Songs: ‘Sing Your Way to Happiness’ (written by Harry Parr Davies), ‘The Holy City’, ‘Peace of Mind’, ‘You’ve Got to Be Smart in the Army Nowadays’, ‘Giddy Up’ (written by Harry Parr Davies), and ‘Mrs Binns’ Twins’.

Tommy Fields, Gladys Dehl and Nino Rossini are The Three Bolas.

Also notable in the cast are Roger Livesey, Mary Maguire, Peter Coke, Jack Donohue, Tommy Fields, Gladys Dehl, Nino Rossini, Eddie Gray, Edward Rigby, Hay Petrie, Gus McNaughton, Mike Johnson, Joe Mott, and Philip Leaver.

Fox shot a film with the same title Keep Smiling (with Jane Withers) in America the same year, hence the alternative title of Smiling Along.

It was the second film made by Fields under her contract with 20th Century Fox.

It is shot at Pinewood Studios near London, on sets designed by art director Oscar Friedrich Werndorff.

Welsh composer and songwriter Harry Parr Davies (24 May 1914 – 14 October 1955) in 1931 talked his way into the dressing room of the singing star Gracie Fields at London’s Winter Garden theatre. From 1934, he worked as her accompanist. He wrote songs for Fields, George Formby, Jack Buchanan and Anna Neagle. His best-known songs included “Pedro the Fisherman’, ‘In My Little Snapshot Album’, ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’ and ‘Sing as We Go’.

Italian comedian, film actor, director and producer Monty Banks (18 July 1897 – 7 January 1950), born Mario Bianchi, was married to Gracie Fields from 1940 till his death in 1950. Banks met Fields in 1935, directing her in four films, and they married in March 1940. He died of a heart attack in the arms of Fields while travelling on the Orient Express train just outside Arona, Italy, aged 52.

The cinematography is by another European refugee, German-born film cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum [Max Greene] (3 February 1896 – 5 July 1968).

Despite two films of the title, Keep Smiling, were people able to Keep Smiling in 1938? As an Italian national, Monty Banks would have been classified as an ‘enemy alien’ in Britain in World War Two and rounded up, so he and Fields quickly left the UK for Canada and then the neutral US to prevent his internment. Italian American internment took place in the US in 1941 and 1942, affecting thousands of Italians. Fields’s popularity plummeted for years. Even for those who managed to stay alive, these times were nothing to smile about.

The cast are Gracie Fields as Gracie Gray, Roger Livesey as Bert Wattle, Mary Maguire as Avis Maguire, Peter Coke as Rene Sigani, Jack Donohue as Denis Wilson, Hay Petrie as Jack, Mike Johnson as Charlie, Eddie Gray as Silvo, Tommy Fields, Gladys Dehl and Nino Rossini as The Three Bolas, Edward Rigby as Silas Gray, Joe Mott as Bill Sneed, Philip Leaver as De Courcy, Gus McNaughton as Eddie Perkins, Paula Rae Wright (Paula Raymond, aged 14) as Bettina Bowman, Carol Adams as Dancer, Joss Ambler as Max, Monty Banks as Auditioner, Hal Gordon, Wilfrid Hyde-White as Assistant hotel clerk, Eliot Makeham as Printer, and Julian Vedey as Hotel clerk.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,601

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