Jumping for Joy

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Jumping for Joy
"Jumping For Joy" (1956).jpg
Original campaign book
Directed by John Paddy Carstairs
Written by
Produced by Raymond Stross
Starring
Cinematography Jack E. Cox
Edited by John D. Guthridge
Music by Larry Adler
Distributed by The Rank Organisation
Release date
21 February 1956
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Jumping for Joy is a 1956 British comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Frankie Howerd, Stanley Holloway, Joan Hickson and Lionel Jeffries. [1] It tells of the comic adventures of an ex-worker at a greyhound racing track.

Contents

Plot

Willie Joy works at a greyhound track as a cleaner, which involves picking up droppings from the dog track between races. He is tricked into standing in the line of the lure and falls on it as it speeds past with the dogs chasing it. He is fired.

Breeder Bert Benton has a sick dog and sells it to Joy who takes it home. His landlady evicts him. He meets con-man "Captain" Jack Montague and together they hatch a plan to make money from the dog, whom they name "Lindy Lou". Nursed back to health, Lindy starts to prove herself at racing trials. Benton wants to buy her back.

Crooks use Joy as an unwitting collaborator in fixing races and placing large bets. They pass doped meat for the dog but Joy and Montague eat it themselves. The crooks find them asleep but cannot find the dog. They detach Montague's railway carriage home and move it onto an active railway line. When they awake they are told they are near Doncaster. The dog is rescued just before the carriage is hit by a train.

Lindy Lou wins the Gold Cup but only due to a distraction in crowd as Joy hits a policeman to ensue a whistle is blown. He is arrested and recognises the distinctive shoes of Haines of Scotland Yard as the ringleader of the crooks.

Cast

Production

Lindy Lou was actually a racing greyhound called Moyshna Queen from Wandsworth Stadium. [2]

Joyce Gardner was a well known professional billiards player at the time, not an actress.

Critical reception

In contemporary reviews Variety called the film a "hilarious dog racing comedy," [3] adding: "Frankie Howerd, popular TV and vaude comic here, gets the maximum of laughs out of a dismissed trackboy role"; Monthly Film Bulletin said "An inoffensively obvious and naive comedy, Jumping for Joy is enlivened by a somewhat macabre running joke about a myopic old woman driver and assured and pleasant performances by Frankie Howerd and Stanley Holloway." [4] Kine Weekly said "The picture smoothly follows through with its basic gags and, oddly enough, the more they are repeated the livelier they become." [5]

Halliwell's Film and Video Guide 2000 describes the film as a "totally predictable star comedy which needs livening up"; [6] the Time Out Film Guide 2009 describes the film as "lame". [7] TV Guide called the film a "Sporadically funny comedy". [8]

Musical score

The New York Times noted: "the delightful harmonica score in Jumping for Joy is provided by American expatriate Larry Adler". [9]

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References

  1. ↑ "Jumping for Joy". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 6 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Genders, Roy (1981). The Encyclopedia of Greyhound Racing. Pelham Books Ltd. ISBN   07207-1106-1.
  3. ↑ "Jumping for Joy". Variety . 201 (13): 6. 29 February 1956 – via ProQuest.
  4. ↑ "Jumping for Joy". Monthly Film Bulletin . 23 (264): 32. 1 January 1956 – via ProQuest.
  5. ↑ "Jumping for Joy". Kine Weekly . 467 (2537): 8. 9 February 1956 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ John Walker (ed.) Halliwell's Film and Video Guide, London: HarperCollins, 1999, p.443
  7. ↑ John Pym (ed.) Time Out Film Guide 2009, LOndon: Ebury: 2008, p.552
  8. ↑ "Jumping For Joy Review". Movies.tvguide.com. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  9. ↑ Hal Erickson (2014). "Jumping-for-Joy - Trailer - Cast - Showtimes". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on 6 March 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
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