Lunch Hour *** (1962, Shirley Anne Field, Robert Stephens, Kay Walsh) – Classic Movie Review 13,225

Shirley Anne Field and Robert Stephens star as a couple who try to conduct an affair during their lunch hour but are continually interrupted, in the 1962 British comedy film Lunch Hour.

Director James Hill’s 1962 British comedy film Lunch Hour is an entertaining little workplace and hotel-set farce with delightfully eager turns from Shirley Anne Field as the Girl, Robert Stephens as the Man, Kay Walsh as the Hotel Manageress and Nigel Davenport as the Personnel Manager.

Shirley Anne Field plays a newly graduated art school designer at a wallpaper manufacturing company who tries to conduct a workplace affair with a married middle manager during their lunch hour but finds their attempts to find privacy are continually interrupted. So the man books a room for an hour at a small hotel…

Lunch Hour is engagingly played, sometimes very amusing fluff, always likeable and quirky, scripted by John Mortimer from his own one-act play, first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 25 June 1960 with Stephen Murray and Wendy Craig. On the London stage in 1961 it was part of a triple bill with A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter and The Form by N F Simpson, starring Emlyn Williams and Wendy Craig.

Field is charming, and it is so good to find her with something substantial to do. Field recalled: ‘We did it on a shoestring and we all worked on a percentage. We all felt that it had something important to say about the rootlessness and confusion that face young people in England since they have no place to go and be alone except on lunch hour.’

Mortimer later adapted it for TV as Kings Cross Lunch Hour, aired on BBC Two on 29 May 1972, with Joss Ackland and Pauline Collins.

Lunch Hour is directed by James Hill, runs 64 minutes, is made by Eyeline Productions, is released by Bryanston Films (UK), is written by John Mortimer, based on the play by John Mortimer, is shot by Wolfgang Suschitzky, is produced by John Mortimer, Harold Orton and Alfred Shaughnessy, and scored by James Hill and Ian Orton.

The cast are Shirley Anne Field as girl, Robert Stephens as man, Kay Walsh as the hotel manageress, Hazel Hughes as auntie, Michael Robbins as Harris, Nigel Davenport as personnel manager, Neil Culleton as little boy, Sandra Leo as little girl, Peter Ashmore as lecturer, and Vi Stevens as waitress.

The film was shot at Marylebone Studios in London, also with a number of exterior scenes.

It was released on DVD in 2011 by Renown Pictures, and screens on Talking Pictures TV.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,225

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