Where There’s a Will *** (1955, Kathleen Harrison, George Cole, Leslie Dwyer) – Classic Movie Review 13,183

Where There’s a Will: George Cole and Dandy Nichols.

An East London family take over a farm in the Devon countryside, in the British 1955 comedy film Where There’s a Will starring Kathleen Harrison, George Cole and Leslie Dwyer.

Director Vernon Sewell’s British 1955 comedy film Where There’s a Will made by George Maynard Productions for distribution by the Eros Films company has the same title to the 1936 Will Hay comedy Where There’s a Will but otherwise no connection. The screenplay is by R F Delderfield, adapting his own play.

A London Cockney family inherits a tumbledown English West Country farm when their uncle dies. The two nieces want to sell up, but the nephew Alfie Brewer (Leslie Dwyer) plans to start up as a farmer. So the nephew (Leslie Dwyer) sets out to Devon to refurbish the building and improve the farm with the help of his reluctant family and the housekeeper Annie Yeo (Kathleen Harrison).

Sewell’s entertainment is gentle, quite sweet and always mildly enjoyable. Delightful familiar character actor stars Harrison, Dwyer, George Cole, Edward Lexy, Dandy Nichols (TV’s Till Death Us Do Part), Michael Shepley, Philip Ray and Sam Kydd brighten up the comedy in R F Delderfield’s somewhat too easy-going, sappy script, adapted from his own play. Edward Woodward plays Ralph Stokes, in his first film.

Sewell reviewed it himself as ‘a charming movie that made a lot of money’ and there’s no real quarrel with that.

The cast are: Kathleen Harrison as Annie Yeo, George Cole as Fred Slater, Leslie Dwyer as Alfie Brewer, Ann Hanslip as June Hodge, Michael Shepley as Mr Cogent, Dandy Nichols as Maud Hodge, Thelma Ruby as Amy Slater, Norman MacOwan as Cagey, Hugh Morton as Arscott, Edward Lexy as Mafeking, Edward Woodward as Ralph Stokes, Philip Ray as Squire Stokes, Sam Kydd as jeep driver, and Bill Shine as Porter.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,183

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