Spring in Park Lane *** (1948, Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Tom Walls) – Classic Movie Review 9453

Producer-director Herbert Wilcox’s 1948 British romantic comedy film Spring in Park Lane stars Anna Neagle and Wilding Michael in this incredibly popular fluff about an impoverished earl Richard (Wilding) who only pretends to be a footman, so that it is OK when the niece and secretary Judy (Neagle) of his eccentric art collector boss Joshua Howard (Tom Walls) falls for him.

Richard is in fact Lord Brent, younger brother of one of Judy’s suitors – George, the Marquess of Borechester (Nicholas Phipps).

The appealing, stylish star team and director Wilcox imbue the fantasy Mayfair high life with a pleasant gloss, and the London theatre Forties-style script is pretty amusing in these hands.

Tom Walls and Nigel Patrick (as ‘art-dealer’ Mr Bacon, actually a con-man) help too and so does screen-writer Nicholas Phipps, who gives himself a neat little comedy part as the Marquis of Borechester.

It was the top movie at the British box office in 1948 and holds the all-time UK cinema attendance record for an all-British film. It is rated fifth in the all-time attendance figures for the UK with a total attendance of 20.5 million, the largest for a wholly British made film. Wilcox said it earned £1,600,000 at the British box office. With no TV, postwar audiences were huge, and cinema-goers were out for escapist entertainment.

The screenplay is based on Alice Duer Miller’s play Come Out of the Kitchen.

Robert Farnon provides the soundtrack. His light orchestral version of the folk tune Early One Morning was popular.

Also in the cast are Peter Graves, Marjorie Fielding, Josephine Fitzgerald, Lana Morris, Catherine Paul, Cyril Conway, H R Hignett, G H Mulcaster and Tom Walls Jr.

Spring in Park Lane is directed by Herbert Wilcox, runs 101 minutes, is made by Herbert Wilcox Productions, is released by British Lion Film Corporation (1948) (UK) and Eagle-Lion Films (1949) (US), is written by Nicholas Phipps, based on Alice Duer Miller’s play Come Out of the Kitchen, is shot in black and white by Max Greene, is produced by Herbert Wilcox, is scored by Robert Farnon and is designed by William C Andrews.

A follow-up film, Maytime in Mayfair, was released the next year.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9453

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