Laughter in Paradise **** (1951, Alastair Sim, Fay Compton, George Cole, Joyce Grenfell, Guy Middleton) – Classic Movie Review 2625

Producer-director Mario Zampi’s delightful 1951 British comedy is a minor classic, enshrining one of Alastair Sim’s most treasurable performances as a henpecked thriller writer and providing eagerly grabbed showcases for showy turns by some of Britain’s finest comedy players of the era.

Practical joker millionaire Henry Russell (Hugh Griffith) dies, leaving instructions that his four relatives can only inherit considerable sums if they perform actions completely alien to their natures. Wimpy, law-abiding Deniston Russell (Alastair Sim) has to get arrested and jailed for 28 days. Snobbish battle-axe Agnes Russell (Fay Compton) has to work as a servant for a month.

Caddish womanising lothario Simon Russell (Guy Middleton) has to marry the first single young woman he speaks to. She turns out to be the cigarette seller, played by a very young Audrey Hepburn, but alas she disappears after only two lines and no proposal of marriage. Timid Herbert Russell (George Cole) has to use a toy pistol to hold up the bank where he works.

Sim is hysterical, Griffith, Cole and Ernest Thesiger are funny, and Joyce Grenfell is outstanding as Sim’s domineering  fiancée. And, although perhaps the script by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies isn’t truly special, there are lots of laughs and the deliciously amusing character playing leaves the warmest of glows.

Like vintage wine, its cynical humour has aged very well. Perhaps little seen or remembered, this gem was incredibly popular in Britain in its day as 1951’s fourth top money-maker in the UK.

Also in the cast are John Laurie, Ronald Adam, Leslie Dwyer, A E Mathews, Beatrice Campbell, Mackenzie Ward, Eleanor Summerfield, Veronica Hurst, Anthony Steel, Charlotte Mitchell, Leslie Dwyer, Colin Gordon, Mary Germaine, Noel Howlett, Martin Boddey, John Boxer, Ian Fleming, Arthur Howard, Douglas Muir and the writer Michael Pertwee.

The film was remade in 1970 as Some Will, Some Won’t.

The cigarette girl Frieda was Hepburn’s first professional appearance on film, apart from a brief role in a 1948 Dutch film Dutch in Seven Lessons. The filming of the scene was recreated in the 2000 biopic The Audrey Hepburn Story starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.

George Cole died on August 5 2015, aged 90. Adieu, dear departed.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2625

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