No great surprises, but well-played and cheerfully delivered, if somewhat predictable comedy goings on with more British character actors than you can shake a stick at. Cecil Parker is in especially good form and Irene Handl and Joyce Grenfell as always conjour humour out of next to nothing.
4 Reviews
Wedding woes!
ShadeGrenade1 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
In the late 50's and early '60's, the Boulting Brothers ( John and Roy ) turned out a string of classic comedies, each satirizing an aspect of British life. In 'Private's Progress', they had a go at the Army, trade unions came under fire in 'I'm All Right Jack', while 'Heavens Above' was a thinly-disguised attack on The Welfare State, and 'Carlton-Browne Of The F.O.' guyed foreign diplomacy. In 'Happy Is The Bride', marriage came under their spotlight. It was a remake of 1941's 'Quiet Wedding', directed by Anthony Asquith, and based on a play by Esther McCracken.
David Chaytor ( Ian Carmichael ) proposes clumsily to fiancée Janet Royd ( Jeanette Scott ) during a cricket match, and she accepts. Soon tongues start buzzing in the Wiltshire village where she lives. Janet's parents ( Cecil Parker and Edith Sharpe ) begin organising the wedding arrangements, or rather her mother does. Relatives pop up and soon the wedding starts to resemble a military exercise. The arrangements continue even after Janet breaks off the whole thing ( having spotted David in what she thinks is a tender embrace with brother John's flighty fiancée, played by Elvi Hale ). David tries to patch things up, and does so, but en route to church he crashes his car, and is arrested on the spot by an over-efficient policeman ( the great Terry-Thomas )...
Its a pretty thin story, but writers John Boulting and Jeffrey Dell get much comic mileage from it. Anyone married will recognise the circus that comes with the preparation for a wedding. Has Aunt Ethel been invited? Are the Reynolds from Number Twenty-Eight coming? What colour should the champagne be? The seating arrangements? The flowers? The bridesmaids? The gifts? And so on and so on. As the Cecil Parker character puts it: "Tomorrow I have to spend the whole day dressed as a waiter, watching people I don't know drinking champagne I cannot really afford!".
The cast is made up of wonderful comedy stalwarts such as John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Eric Barker ( as the vicar ), Cardew Robinson, Joyce Grenfell, Athene Sayler, Miles Malleson, Sam Kydd, Thorley Walters, Victor Maddern, and Nicholas Parsons. You can't go wrong with those people. My only complaint about this film is the relatively small role given to Terry-Thomas. With all due respect, anyone could have played it ( David Lodge must have been unavailable ).
Funniest moment? David telling his future father-in-law that he intends to support Janet by standing for the Liberal Party in a seat in the Outer Hebrides! Whilst not another 'Father Of The Bride' ( I'm talking of the Spencer Tracy version ), this is above average British comedy, and the very last scene ( the Terry-Thomas policeman getting his revenge on the newly-weds by slipping a ticket listing their car's faults under the windshield ) is a beauty. Let's have this on D.V.D. soon please.
David Chaytor ( Ian Carmichael ) proposes clumsily to fiancée Janet Royd ( Jeanette Scott ) during a cricket match, and she accepts. Soon tongues start buzzing in the Wiltshire village where she lives. Janet's parents ( Cecil Parker and Edith Sharpe ) begin organising the wedding arrangements, or rather her mother does. Relatives pop up and soon the wedding starts to resemble a military exercise. The arrangements continue even after Janet breaks off the whole thing ( having spotted David in what she thinks is a tender embrace with brother John's flighty fiancée, played by Elvi Hale ). David tries to patch things up, and does so, but en route to church he crashes his car, and is arrested on the spot by an over-efficient policeman ( the great Terry-Thomas )...
Its a pretty thin story, but writers John Boulting and Jeffrey Dell get much comic mileage from it. Anyone married will recognise the circus that comes with the preparation for a wedding. Has Aunt Ethel been invited? Are the Reynolds from Number Twenty-Eight coming? What colour should the champagne be? The seating arrangements? The flowers? The bridesmaids? The gifts? And so on and so on. As the Cecil Parker character puts it: "Tomorrow I have to spend the whole day dressed as a waiter, watching people I don't know drinking champagne I cannot really afford!".
The cast is made up of wonderful comedy stalwarts such as John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Eric Barker ( as the vicar ), Cardew Robinson, Joyce Grenfell, Athene Sayler, Miles Malleson, Sam Kydd, Thorley Walters, Victor Maddern, and Nicholas Parsons. You can't go wrong with those people. My only complaint about this film is the relatively small role given to Terry-Thomas. With all due respect, anyone could have played it ( David Lodge must have been unavailable ).
Funniest moment? David telling his future father-in-law that he intends to support Janet by standing for the Liberal Party in a seat in the Outer Hebrides! Whilst not another 'Father Of The Bride' ( I'm talking of the Spencer Tracy version ), this is above average British comedy, and the very last scene ( the Terry-Thomas policeman getting his revenge on the newly-weds by slipping a ticket listing their car's faults under the windshield ) is a beauty. Let's have this on D.V.D. soon please.
A very poor remake
Sir_Oblong_Fitzoblong2 February 2022
If you like gentle comedies set in an idealised home counties village peopled by well-spoken, elegant, middle-class people played by cinema stalwarts of the 50s and 60s as I do, then this film ought to be a winner. However, it falls unaccountably flat and is decidedly unfunny. When even Cecil Parker fails to raise a laugh, there is something seriously wrong.
I watched it recently for the first time in many many years and, although I knew it was inferior to the 1941 original Quiet Wedding, had convinced myself that it wasn't that bad and benefitted from modern techniques and the likes of Parker, Carmichael, Grenfell, and Barker but they all seem to be on valium while Athene Seyler comes across as just vile.
A major drawback of course is that Miss Scott is simply not in the same league as the beautiful and bewitching Margaret Lockwood but this doesn't explain the other failings.
A classic tale of the almost inevitable failure of remakes and sequels, though even this isn't as horrendous as Quiet Weekend.
I will just have to keep hoping that a copy of the 1941 version re-surfaces ( I don't really undestand why it seems to have disappeared and hasn't even been on Talking Pictures as far as I recall).
I watched it recently for the first time in many many years and, although I knew it was inferior to the 1941 original Quiet Wedding, had convinced myself that it wasn't that bad and benefitted from modern techniques and the likes of Parker, Carmichael, Grenfell, and Barker but they all seem to be on valium while Athene Seyler comes across as just vile.
A major drawback of course is that Miss Scott is simply not in the same league as the beautiful and bewitching Margaret Lockwood but this doesn't explain the other failings.
A classic tale of the almost inevitable failure of remakes and sequels, though even this isn't as horrendous as Quiet Weekend.
I will just have to keep hoping that a copy of the 1941 version re-surfaces ( I don't really undestand why it seems to have disappeared and hasn't even been on Talking Pictures as far as I recall).
Bland piffle
junk-monkey6 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers
A middle class family have some minor inconveniences planning a wedding before everything is made to turn out all right because the judge, in the final minor inconvenience, turns out to be a friend of the family - the old boys network and all that! - so everyone is jolly nice and English it all gets sorted out.
All the standard tropes of this sort of piffle are trotted out. Bolshy working class characters who drop tools and go on strike at the drop of a hat, the family cook who's always threatening to leave, the bumbling vicar, the slow, plodding country policeman....
The film is full of setups for gags, situations, or plot complications that never arrive. For example: Our entitled hero twit's only source of income comes from writing record reviews under a pseudonym (we are told this - we never see him actually do it or indeed see him listen to any records or show ANY interest in music whatsoever). Another character - a flighty young hepcat swingin' chick is dumped into the mix and name drops the twit's pseudonym. "But I am he!" says he. "Man! that's the grooviest!", says she.... and that's the end of that pointless diversion. The film is full of go nowhere moments like that. The other driving force behind the plot is everyone's ability to instantly come to the wrong conclusion or willingness to accept the word of someone who has. So we get the groom's father turning up at the wedding just as some minor crisis is being sorted and because he doesn't get a word in edgeways for a few minutes goes and sits down till things are a bit calmer - this by the way is the only recognisably sensible thing anyone does in the entire film - once the crisis is sorted there is a long painfully unfunny sequence where everyone tries to work out who he is. No one thinks to ASK him. Oh the hilarity.
The only funny moment that I could find comes near the end when, in the court scene, the policeman dutifully reads out the inane blabberings of our hero from his notes. He's reading them out in a pedantic monotone with pauses as he turns the pages of his note book. It come s across as near incomprehensible rubbish. There's a long pause as the judge tries to digest this information before he turns to the constable and says, "Would you mind repeating that please!" for a moment there was a bit of genuine comedy on screen.
The film is available as a region 2 DVD from Network - Cat No. 7954286
All the standard tropes of this sort of piffle are trotted out. Bolshy working class characters who drop tools and go on strike at the drop of a hat, the family cook who's always threatening to leave, the bumbling vicar, the slow, plodding country policeman....
The film is full of setups for gags, situations, or plot complications that never arrive. For example: Our entitled hero twit's only source of income comes from writing record reviews under a pseudonym (we are told this - we never see him actually do it or indeed see him listen to any records or show ANY interest in music whatsoever). Another character - a flighty young hepcat swingin' chick is dumped into the mix and name drops the twit's pseudonym. "But I am he!" says he. "Man! that's the grooviest!", says she.... and that's the end of that pointless diversion. The film is full of go nowhere moments like that. The other driving force behind the plot is everyone's ability to instantly come to the wrong conclusion or willingness to accept the word of someone who has. So we get the groom's father turning up at the wedding just as some minor crisis is being sorted and because he doesn't get a word in edgeways for a few minutes goes and sits down till things are a bit calmer - this by the way is the only recognisably sensible thing anyone does in the entire film - once the crisis is sorted there is a long painfully unfunny sequence where everyone tries to work out who he is. No one thinks to ASK him. Oh the hilarity.
The only funny moment that I could find comes near the end when, in the court scene, the policeman dutifully reads out the inane blabberings of our hero from his notes. He's reading them out in a pedantic monotone with pauses as he turns the pages of his note book. It come s across as near incomprehensible rubbish. There's a long pause as the judge tries to digest this information before he turns to the constable and says, "Would you mind repeating that please!" for a moment there was a bit of genuine comedy on screen.
The film is available as a region 2 DVD from Network - Cat No. 7954286
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