Shipyard Sally *** (1939, Gracie Fields, Sydney Howard, Morton Selten, Norma Varden) – Classic Movie Review 8430

Director Monty Banks’s lively 1939 British musical comedy Shipyard Sally stars Gracie Fields as failed music-hall singer Sally Fitzgerald, who takes charge of the saloon her father Major Fitzgerald (Sydney Howard) has bought near the John Brown & Company shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland, and helps some shipyard workers among her customers to get their jobs back by leading a campaign to persuade the British Government to reverse the closure decision.

It is Gracie’s show of course, a tailor-made vehicle for her – and a genial one too – and the screenplay by Karl Tunberg and Don Ettlinger gives her plenty to do. But there is nothing strikingly fresh here and in re-treading old ground the star seems to be very slightly coasting.

The highlight comes when Gracie belts out her stirring hit song ‘Wish me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’ by Phil Park and Harry Parr Davies, a World War Two anthem that became a major hit. That is still as fresh as a daisy.

It proved Fields’ last British film, though she made four more films. It was shot at Islington Studios, north London, shortly before the outbreak of the war on sets designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

The Italian-born comic actor Monty Banks (born Mario Bianchi) was Gracie’s husband (from March 1940 till his death at 52 on 7 January 1950). He directed four of Gracie’s features. On the outbreak of World War Two Banks had to flee to Canada with Gracie, and then to neutral United States as he would have faced internment in England as an enemy alien, being an Italian citizen. He then held dual Italian and US citizenship. He died of a heart attack on the Orient Express train outside Arona, Italy.

Monty Banks may be mostly forgotten but his home town of Cesena in the Emilia-Romagna region, has created the Aula Didattica Monty Banks – ‘an initiative promoted by the Comune, the course is open to boys and provides the opportunity to create videos’.

The main cast are Gracie Fields as Sally Fitzgerald, Sydney Howard as Major Fitzgerald, Morton Selten as Lord Alfred Randall, Norma Varden as Lady Patricia Randall, Oliver Wakefield as Forsyth, Tucker McGuire as Linda Marsh, MacDonald Parke as Diggs, Richard Cooper as Sir John Treacher, Joan Cowick as Secretary and Monty Banks.

Shipyard Sally is directed by Monty Banks, runs 77 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, written by Karl Tunberg and Don Ettlinger, based on a story by Gracie Fields, Thomas J Geraghty and Val Valentine, shot in black and white by Otto Kanturek, produced by Robert T Kane, scored by Louis Levy and designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8430

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