Simon and Laura *** (1955, Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Ian Carmichael, Muriel Pavlow, Maurice Denham, Thora Hird) – Classic Movie Review 2710

Director Muriel Box’s bubbly  and spirited 1955 British comedy provides a cute vehicle for lovely stars Kay Kendall and Peter Finch as married couple Simon and Laura Foster. It is a Rank Organisation film produced at Pinewood Studios.

Simon and Laura are an argumentative theatrical couple who are given a new lease of life as TV soap stars when they play a fake harmonious version of themselves on a daily soap opera filmed in their own home. But off screen they are far from the ideal couple that the public imagines they are, and their animosity finally becomes public on their Christmas show.

The two superlative stars are splendidly matched in this still very amusing, pleasantly dated satire written by Alan Melville and based on his 1954 West End stage play. Melville’s original is adapted by Peter Blackmore, author of the play and film Miranda.

With Kendall and Finch starring, the titular couple are significantly younger than in the stage version, though dialogue referring to them as theatrical veterans remains, and so does the idea that they have been together for 20 years or so. Ian Carmichael also stars as the ambitious young BBC producer David Prentice, a role he had previously played on stage.

The film provides a fragrant whiff of life in Britain in the Fifties, shedding light on both its television and popular culture. However, it is uncomfortably shot in Technicolor and the then popular VistaVision, a widescreen process that doesn’t suit the intimate comedy subject. Technicolor and widescreen was being used by the film industry to combat the lure of the narrow screen black and white TV of the day. The joke there being that the film its satirising its enemy, BBC television in its early days.

Future movie star Shirley Anne Field makes her film debut, aged 17, in a minor role and Ian Hendry appears in an uncredited bit part. Also in a cast who bring back the flavour of the Fifties are Alan Wheatley, Richard Wattis, Muriel Pavlow, Maurice Denham, Hubert Gregg, Thora Hird, Terence Longden [Longdon], Joan Hickson, Cyril Chamberlain, Marianne Stone, Muriel George, Charles Hawtrey, Nicholas Parsons, Jill Ireland, Clive Parritt, Beverley Brooks, Hal Osmond, Tom Gill, David Morrell, Stuart Saunders, Brian Wilde, Barry Steele, Esma Cannon, Philip Gilbert, Julia Arnall and Susan Beaumont.

There is more nostalgia value when TV personalities Gilbert Harding and Isobel Barnett (What’s My Line?), Peter Haigh and George Cansdale appear as themselves.

The film had significantly better reviews than the stage show. Presented by H M Tennent, the play began a provincial tour at the Opera House Manchester on 30 August 1954, opening at the Strand Theatre in London’s West End on 25 November. Directed by Murray Macdonald, it starred Roland Culver, Coral Browne, Ian Carmichael, Dora Bryan, Ernest Thesiger and Esma Cannon, with sets designed by Alan Tagg.

But the play was a success with the public. It moved to the Apollo Theatre on 14 February 1955 and was seen by the Queen on 24 March. It ran a total of six months, closing on 28 May. The film version went into production at Pinewood in the first week of June 1955 immediately after the play’s closure.

Kay Kendall married Rex Harrison in 1957. Harrison learned from Kendall’s doctor that she had been diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia, a fact that was kept from Kendall, who believed she was suffering from an iron deficiency. The actor cared for Kendall until her death on 6 September 1959 at age 32.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2710

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