The Wild Affair * (1965, Nancy Kwan, Terry-Thomas, Jimmy Logan, Bud Flanagan, Betty Marsden, Gladys Morgan, Victor Spinetti) – Classic Movie Review 12,929

John Krish’s misguided 1965 black and white British satirical sex comedy film The Wild Affair stars Nancy Kwan, Terry-Thomas, along with Jimmy Logan, Bud Flanagan, Betty Marsden. 

‘Can a secretary say NO!!! When her boss says YES???’

Writer/ director John Krish’s misguided 1965 black and white British satirical sex comedy film The Wild Affair stars Nancy Kwan, Terry-Thomas, along with Jimmy Logan, Bud Flanagan, Betty Marsden, Gladys Morgan and Victor Spinetti, and is based on the 1961 novel The Last Hours of Sandra Lee by British novelist William Saroyan. It’s fun to see the vintage British comic talent but delightful main star Nancy Kwan is the wrong actress for the job.

Just before surrendering to the virtues of being monogamously married to her fiancé Andy (Donald Churchill), secretary Marjorie Lee (Nancy Kwan) decides to attend a wild Christmas office party, where her boss Godfrey Deane (Terry-Thomas) approaches her. But it is the ribald side of her personality that dominates as she joins it, with mildly orgiastic consequences.

The Wild Affair is a rather absurd and foolish, largely unfunny British comedy, with the peculiar choice of the charming and alluring Nancy Kwan (from the 1960 The World of Suzie Wong as the lead, and a fair smattering of vintage British comic talent (especially Terry-Thomas as Kwan’s boss, Victor Spinetti, Bud Flanagan, and best of all Betty Marsden as a spinster pining for her boss) very welcome but mostly going to waste.

John Krish’s satirical screenplay seeks to be relevant or revealing, but it isn’t working smoothly or well.

Also in the cast are Paul Whitsun-Jones, Donald Churchill, David Sumner, Joyce Blair, Bessie Love, Bernard Adams, Diane Aubrey, Patience Collier, Paul Curran, Frank Finlay, and Frank Thornton.

Note Frank Finlay way down the cast as ‘Drunk’. Things soon looked up for him after this. He played Iago opposite Laurence Olivier’s Othello in John Dexter’s 1965 production of Othello at the National Theatre, and then earned an Oscar nomination re-creating his performance as Iago in the film of Othello (1965).

It says much that this film is remembered, if at all, for Nancy Kwan’s hair cut. Her Suzie Wong long hair was chopped into a sharp modernist bob by British hairstylist Vidal Sassoon on John Krish’s request, appearing in October Vogue magazine. Everything changes so quickly and superficially in the world of fashion! Vidal’s new hairstyle was previously called the Mary Quant cut and now became known as the Nancy Kwan cut!!

The Wild Affair was filmed in 1963, but it was not released in UK cinemas till 7 November 1965 and finally opened in London on 28 November 1965.

Chinese-American actress Nancy Kwan Ka-shen was born in Hong Kong on May 19, 1939.

The cast are Nancy Kwan as Marjorie Lee, Terry-Thomas as Godfrey Deane, Jimmy Logan as Craig, Bud Flanagan as Sergeant Bletch, Gladys Morgan as Mrs. Tovey, Paul Whitsun-Jones as Tiny Hearst, Betty Marsden as Mavis Cook, Donald Churchill as Andy, Victor Spinetti as Quentin, Joyce Blair as Monica, David Sumner as Ralph, Diane Aubrey as Jill, Bessie Love as Marjorie’s Mother, Joan Benham as Assistant, Frank Finlay as Drunk, Frank Thornton as Manager, Bernard Adams, Patience Collier, and Paul Curran.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,929

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