Tawny Pipit *** (1944, Bernard Miles, Rosamund John, Niall MacGinnis) – Classic Movie Review 8634

Bernard Miles co-writes and co-directs (with Charles Saunders) and produces and stars in the 1944 British black and white wartime comedy Tawny Pipit, a gently winsome piece of whimsy about the momentarily near-calamitous events that occur when a pair of threatened-species tawny pipit birds comes to live in a field near an English village. Injured fighter pilot Jimmy Bancroft and his nurse Hazel Broome come across the pair of rare birds nestling in the field.

The locals, organised by Colonel Barton-Barrington (Miles), Hazel Broome (Rosamund John) and Jimmy Bancroft (Niall MacGinnis), have to battle troops and farmers who want to use the field, as well as the grubby little thieves who want to steal the birds’ eggs.

Tawny Pipit is admittedly dated and somewhat reactionary in its views, and it is all a bit of a storm in a teacup (or eggcup?). But there are certainly enough charm and acting skill on show here to see a genial and amusing film through the script’s feebler passages.

Future star of the 1955 The Ladykillers Katie Johnson gets an unbilled role as Miss Pyman.

The composer Noel Mewton-Wood committed suicide on 11 December 1953, aged only 31. He also composed the score for Miles’s Chance of a Lifetime (1951).

End credits cast list credits ‘AND MR and MRS PIPIT – The Tawny Pipits’. But the birds in the film are a pair of ordinary meadow pipits as tawny pipits are very rare in the UK and they could not find any to film.

Also in the cast are Jean Gillie, Marjorie Rhodes, Brefni O’Rorke, Christopher Steele, Lucie Mannheim, George Carney, Wylie Watson, John Salew. Ernest Butcher, Lyonel Watts, Ian Fleming, Vida Hope, Arthur Burne, Billy Bridget, Jackie Christie, John Rae, Ann Wilton, Grey Blake, Stuart Latham, Johnnie Schofield, Bill Wilson, Joan Sterndale-Bennett, David Keir, Katie Johnson, Sydney Benson, Jenny Weaver and Sam Wilkinson.

Tawny Pipit is directed by Bernard Miles and Charles Saunders, runs 85 minutes, is made by Two Cities Films, is released by General Film Distributors, is written by Bernard Miles and Charles Saunders, is shot in black and white by Ray Sturgess and Eric Cross, is produced by Bernard Miles and William Sistrom, is scored by Noel Mewton-Wood and designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8634

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