The Courtneys of Curzon Street ** (1947, Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding) – Classic Movie Review 11,791

Director Herbert Wilcox’s 1947 British drama film The Courtneys of Curzon Street [The Courtney Affair] stars the winning team of Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding, is one of the all-time most seen British films, with 15,900,000 cinema tickets sold.

Victorian gentleman Sir Edward Courtney (Wilding) weds the Irish maid, Kate O’Halloran (Neagle), scandalising the local London gentry, but she leaves him after giving birth to his son. She becomes a theatre star; the son grows up and marries back into the aristocracy; and his son weds a factory worker in World War Two.

The Courtneys of Curzon Street is quaint but plushly upholstered balderdash about three generations of a London Mayfair family, crafted by Herbert Wilcox as a well-oiled vehicle for his wife and her perfect screen partner Wilding, but with some light social comment about class division and snobbery in the Noël Coward style. The character actor cast is a big asset, too.

Cynically, you might think director Wilcox’s Hollywood-style treatment of Curzon Street was aimed at the American box-office, where it did very nicely as The Courtney Affair. But it was also a huge hit in Britain – the top money-maker of its year at the British box office. In a big year at the cinema, it beat off popular rival attractions The Jolson Story, Great Expectations, Odd Man Out, Frieda, Holiday Camp and Duel in the Sun.

Also in the cast are Gladys Young, Coral Browne, Michael Medwin, Daphne Slater, Jack Watling, Helen Cherry, Bernard Lee, Percy Walsh, Thora Hird, Max Kirby, Terry Randall, Kenneth Warrington, James Kavanagh, Peter Hobbes, Martin Case, Ethel O’Shea, Alice Gatchet, and Madge Brindley.

It is shot at Shepperton Film Studios in Surrey, UK.

The runtime is 120 minutes (UK) and 112 minutes (US).

The Courtneys of Curzon Street [The Courtney Affair] is directed by Herbert Wilcox, runs 120 minutes (UK) or 112 minutes (US), is made by Imperadio [Herbert Wilcox Productions], is released by British Lion, is written by Nicholas Phipps, based on a story by Florence Tranter, is shot in black and white by Max Greene [Mutz Greenbaum], is produced by Herbert Wilcox, is scored by Anthony Collins and is designed by William C Andrews.

The cast are Anna Neagle as Kate O’Halloran, Michael Wilding as Sir Edward Courtney, Gladys Young as Lady Courtney, Daphne Slater as Cynthia Carmody, Jack Watling as Teddy Courtney as a boy, Michael Medwin as Teddy Courtney as a man, Edgar Norfolk as Mr W, Edward Rigby as Mr R, G H Mulcaster as Sir Edward Courtney Sr, Coral Browne as Valerie, Alice Gachet as Louise, Helen Cherry as Mary Courtney, Ethel O’Shea as Mrs O’Halloran, Terry Randall as Pam, Thora Hird as Maud, Nicholas Phipps as Phipps, Bernard Lee as Colonel Gascoyne, Max Kirby as Algy Longworth, Percy Walsh as Sir Frank Murchison, Max Kirby, Kenneth Warrington, James Kavanagh, Peter Hobbes, Martin Case, Ethel O’Shea, Alice Gatchet, and Madge Brindley.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,791

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