Let the People Sing | |
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Directed by | John Baxter |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | James Wilson |
Edited by | Jack Harris |
Music by | Kennedy Russell |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Anglo-American Film Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 105 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Let the People Sing is a 1942 British comedy film directed by John Baxter, [1] and starring Alastair Sim, Fred Emney and Edward Rigby. The film's sets were designed by R. Holmes Paul. It was made at Elstree Studios. [2]
The screenplay concerns the people of a small town who band together to try to save their music hall from closure. It is based on the 1939 novel Let the People Sing by J. B. Priestley. [3]
Time Out wrote that "John Baxter was the British director probably least patronizing and most sympathetic to the working classes and their culture during the '30s and '40s, and even if his films now often seem naïve and simplistic, it's good at least to see an honest and humorous attempt to deal with life outside Mayfair. Less scathing than Love on the Dole (his best known film), this adaptation of a J.B. Priestley novel is a spritely, vaguely Capra-esque comedy... Fred Emney steals the show as a government arbitrator susceptible to the charms of alcohol." [1]
John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE was a Scottish character actor who began his theatrical career at the age of thirty and quickly became established as a popular West End performer, remaining so until his death in 1976. Starting in 1935, he also appeared in more than fifty British films, including an iconic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol, released in 1951 as Scrooge in Great Britain and as A Christmas Carol in the United States. Though an accomplished dramatic actor, he is often remembered for his comically sinister performances.
Nancy Kelly was an American actress in film, theater, and television. A child actress and model, she was a repertory cast member of CBS Radio's The March of Time, and appeared in several films in the late 1920s. She became a leading lady upon returning to the screen in the late 1930s, while still in her teens, and made two dozen movies between 1938 and 1946, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone, later that same year. After turning to the stage in the late 1940s, she had her greatest success in a character role, the distraught mother in The Bad Seed, receiving a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 1955 stage production and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the 1956 film adaptation, her last film role. Kelly then worked regularly in television until 1963, then took over the role of Martha in the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for several months. She returned to television for a handful of appearances in the mid-1970s.
George Edward Cole, OBE was an English actor whose career spanned 75 years. He was best known for playing Arthur Daley in the long-running ITV comedy-drama show Minder and Flash Harry in the early St Trinian's films.
Frederick Arthur Round Emney was an English character actor and comedian.
David Mervyn Johns was a Welsh stage, film and television actor who became a fixture of British films during the Second World War. Johns appeared extensively on screen and stage with over 100 credits between 1923 and 1979.
Let the People Sing may refer to:
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