| It's a Great Day | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | John Warrington |
| Produced by | Victor Lyndon |
| Starring | Ruth Dunning Edward Evans Sid James |
| Cinematography | Cedric Williams |
| Music by | Eric Spear |
Production company | Grove Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 71 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
It's a Great Day is a 1955 British comedy film directed by John Warrington starring Ruth Dunning, Edward Evans and Sid James. [1] It is a spin-off from the popular BBC TV soap The Grove Family.
Local builder Bob Grove has some temperamental differences with his Council Manager leaving him without materials to finish a housing estate. His son Jack recruits the services of Harry Mason of dubious character, to help him get hold of the materials he needs. Things turn sour when Bob and Jack are suspected of stealing, leading to a police investigation. All this takes place around a planned Royal Visit to the new housing estate.
In discussing the original TV show, the Radio Times praised "The excellent Ruth Dunning and Edward Evans," but "the acting honours, and the popularity stakes, were hijacked by formidable Nancy Roberts as Gran. This cheaply made feature version of the show, produced quickly and efficiently by Butcher's Films with the original cast, now looks like a perfect period artefact. The plot is wonderfully naive, casting doubt on upright Mr Grove's integrity, and the cast is studded with marvellous 1950s faces such as Sid James, Victor Maddern, Michael Balfour and Vera Day. It's a treat for nostalgists and those who cherish that period of postwar austerity, when such a cosy family unit was perceived as the ideal." [2]
Kine Weekly wrote: "The picture, or rather chapter of incidents, has variety – there is bathroom slapstick, a fierce fight between Mead and Jack, the rescue of the Groves’s younger son from a scaffold and squabbles between the Groves’s daughter and her beau – and the titbits not only register on their own, but blend into a laughable mosaic." [3]
In British Sound Films David Quinlan said: "Harmless comedy from a monumentally successful TV show; certainly there’s a lot going on." [4]
The Grove Family was a British television series soap opera, generally regarded as the first of its kind broadcast in the UK, made and broadcast by the BBC Television Service from 1954 to 1957. The series concerned the life of the family of the title, who were named after the BBC's Lime Grove Studios where the programme was made.
The Hollywood Palace is an hourlong American television variety show broadcast Saturday nights on ABC from January 4, 1964, to February 7, 1970. Titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace for its first few weeks, it began as a midseason replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show, which lasted only three months.
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Ruth Dunning, born Mary Ruth Dunning, was a Welsh actress of stage, television, and film. Although her year of birth was long given as 1911, her birth was registered in Holywell in 1909.
Those People Next Door is a 1953 British comedy film directed by John Harlow and starring Jack Warner, Charles Victor and Marjorie Rhodes. It was based on the play Wearing the Pants by Zelda Davees.
Murder at 3 a.m. is a 1953 British crime film second feature directed by Francis Searle and starring Dennis Price, Peggy Evans and Rex Garner. A Scotland Yard detective investigates a series of attacks on women.
The Gang's All Here is a 1939 British black-and-white comedy-mystery, directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Jack Buchanan and Googie Withers. It was produced by Associated British Picture Corporation and released in the U.S. in 1943 as The Amazing Mr. Forrest.
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