The Lady Is a Square * (1959, Anna Neagle, Frankie Vaughan, Janette Scott, Anthony Newley, Wilfrid Hyde White) – Classic Movie Review 10,931

‘Frankie Sings 5 Songs… & Dances!’

Co-producer/ director Herbert Wilcox’s 1959 black and white British comedy musical romance The Lady Is a Square stars his 55-year-old wife Anna Neagle along with Frankie Vaughan, Anthony Newley, Janette Scott and Wilfrid Hyde White. Neagle’s star may have been waning but Vaughan’s was in full bloom, and in 1957 he was voted the eighth most popular star at the British box office.

At the end of her movie career, star/ co-producer Anne Neagle landed herself with a load of old tosh this time as a poor high-society widow named Frances Baring who reluctantly enlists the help of a budding pop star called Johnny Burns, played by the likeable Frankie Vaughan, who never quite made it in the movies, though he did make a film with Marilyn Monroe, Let’s Make Love (1960).

Frankie Vaughan pretends to be her butler so that he can secretly finance her late husband’s symphony concerts and he falls for her daughter Joanna (Janette Scott) and becomes Joanna’s new boyfriend.

There is stiff acting by all the performers, but then they do not have a funny or even amusing script to work with, and director Wilcox can’t add much pizzazz.

It must have seemed very genteel and sedate even back in 1958.

It is a bit of a Frankie Vaughan song fest. He sings his own song ‘Honey Bunny Baby’, as well as The Lady Is a Square, Love Is The Sweetest Thing, That’s My Doll and even Ombra mai fu (Handel’s Largo) from Xerxes, while the square lady Neagle dances Anthony Newley!

It is Neagle’s last cinema appearance, then concentrating on theatre and occasional TV.

Also in the cast are Ted Lune, Christopher Rhodes, Kenneth Cope, Josephine Fitzgerald, Mary Peach, Marguerite Brennan, Bruno Barnabe, Harold Kasket, John Carson, John le Mesurier and Gwynneth Tighe.

Frankie Vaughan (3 February 1928 – 17 September 1999) was an English singer and actor who recorded more than 80 pop singles, two of which topped the UK Singles Chart – ‘The Garden of Eden’ (1957) and ‘Tower of Strength’ (1961).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,931

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