Derby Day | |
---|---|
Directed by | Herbert Wilcox |
Written by | Arthur Austen John Baines Monckton Hoffe Alan Melville |
Produced by | Maurice Cowan Hebert Wilcox |
Starring | Anna Neagle Michael Wilding Googie Withers John McCallum Peter Graves Suzanne Cloutier Gordon Harker |
Narrated by | Raymond Glendenning |
Cinematography | Mutz Greenbaum |
Edited by | Bill Lewthwaite |
Music by | Anthony Collins |
Production company | |
Distributed by | British Lion Film Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Box office | £150,010 (UK) [1] |
Derby Day (U.S. title: Four Against Fate) is a 1952 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Googie Withers, John McCallum, Peter Graves, Suzanne Cloutier and Gordon Harker. [2] An ensemble piece, it portrays several characters on their way to the Derby Day races at Epsom Downs Racecourse. It was an attempt to revive the success that Neagle and Wilding had previously enjoyed on screen together. [3] To promote the film, Wilcox arranged for Neagle to launch the film at the 1952 Epsom Derby. [4]
While making the film, Wilding began dating Elizabeth Taylor, who was in London filming Ivanhoe , and later became her second husband. [5]
On the morning of the Epsom Derby, a disparate group of people prepare to go to the races. Lady Helen Forbes, a recently widowed aristocrat, is planning to make the journey in spite of the disapproval of her social set who consider it unseemly for her to go while still in mourning. David Scott, a newspaper cartoonist, is ordered to go by his editor against his wishes. He invites his taxi driver, along with the driver's wife, to join him. When the taxi breaks down, Lady Forbes offers him a lift.
As part of a charity raffle, dissolute film star Gerald Berkeley must reluctantly escort a wealthy grand dame to Epsom, although when the woman falls and injures her leg, her crafty housekeeper arranges for the young French Canadian maid to go in her place. A lodger accidentally kills a man whose wife he has been having an affair with. The lodger and the wife plan to flee the country, so they travel to Epsom, where he knows a tipster who may be able to smuggle them out. While waiting for the race to start, Lady Forbes and David Scott meet up again, and find themselves sharing confidences, as they were both bereaved by the same air crash. It seems likely that they will meet again.
The lodger and the wife are spotted and arrested. The taxi driver's wife decides that she enjoyed the day at the races after all, despite her earlier reluctance to attend.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The film involves a stereotyped collection of characters in some equally familiar situations, For the lower orders there is crime (John McCallum, unshaven, breathing heavily and on the run) and artificial Cockney comedy (Gladys Henson and Gordon Harker) with only one joke – the hypothetical superiority of television to the real thing. The film star (Peter Graves) makes tiresomely coy intramural jokes about the British film industry; the maid (Suzanne Cloutier) is stage French. The upper classes, represented by Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding – who contrive to look as though they were posing for an advertisement in a glossy magazine – suffer bravely but woodenly over their champagne. A script sadly deficient in wit, originality or probability shows up the pedestrian nature of Herbert Wilcox's technique. Usually he presents similar ingredients with a certain showmanship, but here excessive loyalty to a formula has produced far from happy results." [6]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This is an engaging, absorbing look at the various flotsam and jetsam that pit themselves against the Fates at Epsom Downs on Derby Day. The British class system was firmly rooted and unassailable in the early 1950s, and director Herbert Wilcox nicely milks its rituals and nuances at a great cultural event. The portmanteau cast effortlessly goes through its paces with aplomb and confidence. We have been here many times before, but it's still fun." [7]
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "average", writing: "Neagle-WIlding formula wearing thin." [8]
Leslie Halliwell said: "Intercut comic and melodramatic stories of four people who go to the Derby. Quietly efficient, class-conscious entertainment on the lines of Friday the 13th and The Bridge of San Luis Rey. No surprises, but plenty of familiar faces." [9]
Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox, known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.
Michael Charles Gauntlet Wilding was an English stage, television, and film actor. He is best known for a series of films he made with Anna Neagle; he also made two films with Alfred Hitchcock, Under Capricorn (1949) and Stage Fright (1950); and he guest starred on Hitchcock's TV show in 1963. He was married four times, including to Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had two sons.
Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers, CBE, AO was an English entertainer. She was a dancer and actress, with a lengthy career spanning some nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was a well-known actress and star of British films during and after the Second World War.
John Neil McCallum, was an Australian theatre and film actor, highly successful in the United Kingdom. He was also a television producer.
Odette is a 1950 British war film based on the true story of Special Operations Executive French agent, Odette Sansom, living in England, who was captured by the Germans in 1943, condemned to death and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp to be executed. However, against all odds she survived the war and testified against the prison guards at the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials. She was awarded the George Cross in 1946; the first woman ever to receive the award, and the only woman who has been awarded it while still alive.
Herbert Sydney Wilcox CBE was a British film producer and director.
For the British writer, see Mary Forbes Evans.
The Courtneys of Curzon Street is a 1947 British drama film starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding. It is a postwar, reconstruction-era movie following a family through four generations and their sacrifices in wars and accompanying social changes. It is a study of class division and snobbery in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with a message that the sacrifices of war have been worthwhile and have been accompanied by social change and that people are now freer to make their own choices about their lives.
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk is a 1958 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox, starring Anna Neagle, Anthony Quayle, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dora Bryan, John Le Mesurier and Lloyd Lamble. It was written by Edgar Lustgarten from a story by Stanley Jackson.
The Lady Is a Square is a black and white 1958 British comedy musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and featuring Anna Neagle, Frankie Vaughan and Janette Scott.
Limelight is a 1936 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Arthur Tracy, Anna Neagle and Jane Winton. It was released in the U.S. as Backstage.
Piccadilly Incident is a 1946 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Coral Browne, Edward Rigby and Leslie Dwyer.
Maytime in Mayfair is a 1949 British musical romance film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Nicholas Phipps, and Tom Walls. It was a follow-up to Spring in Park Lane.
Trent's Last Case is a 1952 British detective film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Michael Wilding, Margaret Lockwood, Orson Welles and John McCallum. It was produced by Wilcox as part of a distribution agreement with Republic Pictures. It was based on the 1913 novel Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley, and had been filmed previously in the UK with Clive Brook in 1920, and in a 1929 US version.
No Time for Tears is a 1957 British drama film directed by Cyril Frankel in CinemaScope and Eastman Color and starring Anna Neagle, George Baker, Sylvia Syms and Anthony Quayle. The staff at a children's hospital struggle with their workload.
Taxi for Two is a 1929 part-talkie sound British romantic comedy film drama directed by Denison Clift and Alexander Esway and starring Mabel Poulton and John Stuart. Produced by Gainsborough Pictures, it was the first sound film made by Gainsborough to be released.
The Lady with a Lamp is a 1951 British historical drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding and Felix Aylmer. The film depicts the life of Florence Nightingale and her work with wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War. It was shot at Shepperton Studios outside London. Location shooting took place at Cole Green railway station in Hertfordshire and at Lea Hurst, the Nightingale family home, near Matlock in Derbyshire. The film's sets were designed by the art director William C. Andrews. It is based on the 1929 play The Lady with a Lamp by Reginald Berkeley.
Strange Boarders is a 1938 British comedy thriller film, directed by Herbert Mason, produced by Edward Black and written by Sidney Gilliat and A. R. Rawlinson. It stars Tom Walls, Renée Saint-Cyr, Googie Withers and Ronald Adam. The film is an adaptation of the 1934 espionage novel The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent by E. Phillips Oppenheim, and was well received by critics. It was produced by Gainsborough Pictures and distributed by General Film Distributors.
Nell Gwyn is a 1926 British silent romance film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Dorothy Gish, Randle Ayrton and Juliette Compton. It was based on the 1926 novel Mistress Nell Gwyn by Marjorie Bowen and follows the life of Nell Gwynne, the mistress of Charles II. Wilcox later made a second version of the film in 1934, Nell Gwynn which starred Anna Neagle.
Lilacs in the Spring is a 1954 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Errol Flynn and David Farrar. The film was made at Elstree Studios with sets designed by the art director William C. Andrews. Shot in Trucolor it was distributed in Britain by Republic Pictures. It was the first of two films Neagle and Flynn made together, the other being King's Rhapsody. It was released in the United States as Let's Make Up.