Ladies Who Do *** (1963, Peggy Mount, Miriam Karlin, Dandy Nichols, Robert Morley, Harry H Corbett) – Classic Movie Review 9703

Four formidable British comedy stalwart ladies – Peggy Mount, Miriam Karlin, Avril Elgar and Dandy Nichols – head the superb Sixties British comic cast of director C M Pennington-Richards’s fairly amusing 1963 farcical comedy Ladies Who Do about office cleaner char ladies who have a run of luck with the sensitive stock market information tips that they retrieve from the office rubbish bins.

Michael Pertwee writes with practised ease (and provides a role for his family member, younger brother Jon Pertwee), with his screenplay based on an original idea by John Bignall. But it is the smashing performances rather than the lines that raise most of the smiles.

Peggy Mount’s cleaning lady character Mrs Cragg stumbles on commercial info that she passes innocently to The Colonel (Robert Morley), who buys shares and cleans up. The duo then involve other cleaning ladies (Miriam Karlin, Avril Elgar and Dandy Nichols), become wheeler-dealer experts and make a fortune to save their street from demolition by a wicked developer.

Robert Morley as The Colonel: ‘It’s exactly like the football pools except that we know the results beforehand.’

Also in the cast are Harry H Corbett, Jon Pertwee, Nigel Davenport, Carol White, Ron Moody, Joan Benham, Arthur Howard, Ernest Clark, Tristram Jellinek, Graham Stark, John Laurie and Cardew Robinson.

Good though everybody is, the film belongs to Peggy Mount and Robert Morley.

Ladies Who Do is directed by C M Pennington-Richards, runs 85 minutes, is made by Fanfare and Bryanston, is released by British Lion, is written by Michael Pertwee, based on an original idea by John Bignall, is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Faithful, is produced by George H Brown and is scored by Ron Goodwin.

Jon Pertwee was Doctor Who producer Peter Bryant’s second choice to play the Doctor after Ron Moody turned it down.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9703

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