Make Mine Mink | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Asher |
Written by | Michael Pertwee Peter Blackmore |
Based on | the play Breath of Spring by Peter Coke |
Produced by | Hugh Stewart |
Starring | Terry-Thomas Athene Seyler Hattie Jacques Billie Whitelaw |
Cinematography | Reginald Wyer |
Edited by | Roger Cherrill |
Music by | Philip Green |
Production company | |
Distributed by | J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £95,000 [1] |
Make Mine Mink is a 1960 British comedy farce film directed by Robert Asher and featuring Terry-Thomas, Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques and Billie Whitelaw. [2] It was based on the 1958 play Breath of Spring by Peter Coke, and its sequels.
The screenplay concerns a group of eccentric misfits who go on a crime spree, stealing mink coats for charity in a Robin Hood-style gang.
A group of lodgers – Major Rayne, Nanette ("Nan") and "Pinkie" Pinkerton – staying at the Kensington apartment of Dame Beatrice, an elderly philanthropist, are bored with their humdrum, restricted lives. Lily, Dame Bea's beautiful young housekeeper, overhears an argument between their neighbours, the Spanagers. When Mrs. Spanager rejects her husband's gift of a mink coat due to his lies about his business trip, he pretends to throw the coat off their balcony, but actually just hides it. Lily snags it and gives it to her employer to show her gratitude for hiring her despite her criminal record. Dame Beatrice is at first delighted, but then assumes Lily has stolen it. She and the lodgers concoct a scheme to return the fur coat before its owners realize its absence. Despite several comical mishaps, the gang manage to do so using a plan drawn up by the retired Major. The four are so exhilarated by their escapade, they decide to steal more furs, presuming that intricacies of theft should prove no more difficult than was the return of the Spanagers' fur, with all the proceeds of their exploits being donated to charity.
Their attempt to rob Madame Spolinski's boutique goes somewhat awry, due to Pinkie's ineptitude, but they still manage to get away with a fur coat. However, they have not considered how to dispose of their loot. The Major, pretending he is writing a book on delinquency, gets Lily to direct him to a shady café in Limehouse in search of a fence. It turns out that Lily is behind the times; it is now run by the Salvation Army. Meanwhile, they have to hide their activities from Lily, who is now dating policeman Jim Benham.
When they catch a burglar hiding under Pinkie's bed, they agree to let him go on condition that he direct them to a fence. Dame Beatrice goes to make contact with the fence, only to discover, to her chagrin, that it is her own nephew Freddie. The £550 he pays her goes to an orphanage in dire straits. The quartet then go on a burglary spree. Their amateurish escapades become widely reported in the newspapers, one of which calls them "superannuated Beatniks". On more than one occasion, they narrowly evade capture.
Then Lily discovers what they are doing. Horrified, she explains how lucky they are not to be behind bars and makes them promise to stop their criminal activities. However, when Dame Beatrice receives an urgent request for money for a children's home, they decide to pull off one last job. The Major plans a raid on a high-tone, but illegal gambling party. Dame Beatrice pretends to be a gambler, while the rest of the group dress up as police officers. They stage a phoney raid of the premises, planning to make away with all the fur coats in the cloakroom, but a real police raid minutes later tests their mettle. They manage to escape with a few furs.
Lily confronts them when she sees the new furs. When Inspector Pape from Scotland Yard turns up, they expect to be arrested. However, they are relieved to discover the inspector has come round regarding a fur reported stolen from Nan (by Pinkie, as it turns out). Once the inspector departs, a furious Lily extracts a promise to stop stealing furs.
Then another plea reaches Dame Beatrice for a sorely needed charitable donation. She reminds her partners in crime that their only vow was not to steal furs. Lily and Jim go to see the Crown Jewels, and as they are leaving, Lily thinks the four Beefeaters heading into the chamber holding the jewellery look familiar, then dismisses the fantastic idea. However, her instincts are correct.
Producer Hugh Stewart said he put together the film quickly when Norman Wisdom, with whom Stewart normally worked, went off to make a film with Americans. [1]
Seyler and Elspeth Duxbury reprised their stage roles from the London production of Breath of Spring.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Another in the current cycle of comedies about organised crime, Make Mine Mink is by no means original yet manages to whip up several tense and amusing sequences. The most successful of these rely on visual rather than verbal humour – Terry-Thomas searching for a fence, Athene Seyler at a gambling party. The dialogue, in fact, is the film's weakest feature, depending as it does on double entendres, wisecracks and leisurely aspidistra-and-antimacassar humour. The larger-than-life playing of Athene Seyler, Terry-Thomas and Hattie Jacques conflicts with Billie Whitelaw's completely different style of warm-hearted naturalism, so that the film tends to disintegrate into a series of funny sketches, very weakly linked." [3]
Bosley Crowther, critic for The New York Times , gave it a generally favourable review, writing, "it has bumpy stretches where the script writer's clumsy jointing shows. But, on the whole, it is a comical conveyance for the cut-ups of its skillful cast." [4]
Variety reported, "The humor is episodic, but Robert Asher has directed the lively screenplay briskly enough, and the camerawork is okay. The four members of the gang do their chores admirably, with Seyler outstanding." [5]
According to Hugh Stewart, who produced, the film was a big success in the US. [1]
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a 1958 20th Century Fox film loosely based on the story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British woman who became a missionary in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Mark Robson, who received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, the film stars Ingrid Bergman as Aylward and Curt Jürgens as her love interest, Captain Lin Nan, a Chinese Army officer with a Dutch father. Robert Donat, who played the mandarin of the town in which Aylward lived, died before the film was released. The musical score was composed and conducted by Malcolm Arnold. The cinematography was by Freddie Young.
Frenzy is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant. The original music score was composed by Ron Goodwin.
Athene Seyler, CBE was an English actress.
Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs. Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.
Louise Beavers was an American film and television actress who appeared in dozens of films and two hit television shows from the 1920s to 1960. She played a prominent role in advancing the lives of Black Americans through her work and collaborated with fellow advocates to improve the social standing and media image of the Black population.
Douglas Fowley was an American movie and television actor in more than 240 films and dozens of television programs, He is probably best remembered for his role as the frustrated movie director Roscoe Dexter in Singin' in the Rain (1952), and for his regular supporting role as Doc Holliday in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. He was the father of rock and roll musician and record producer Kim Fowley.
Freddie as F.R.O.7 is a 1992 British animated musical action fantasy comedy film written and directed by Jon Acevski and starring the voice of Ben Kingsley. Inspired by bedtime stories Acevski told to his son about his favourite toy frog working as a secret agent, it is a parody of James Bond.
Man in the Attic is a 1953 mystery film directed by Hugo Fregonese. It was released in the United States on December 23 by Twentieth Century Fox. The movie is based on the 1913 novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes, which fictionalizes the Jack the Ripper killings, and was previously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1927, by Maurice Elvey in 1932, by John Brahm in 1944, and subsequently by David Ondaatje in 2009.
Hell Is a City is a 1960 British crime thriller film starring Stanley Baker, based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter.
The Beggar's Opera is a 1953 British historical musical film, a Technicolor adaptation of John Gay's 1728 ballad opera of the same name. The film, directed by Peter Brook in his feature film debut, stars Laurence Olivier, Hugh Griffith, Dorothy Tutin, Stanley Holloway, Daphne Anderson and Athene Seyler. Olivier and Holloway provide their own singing, but Tutin and others were dubbed.
I Thank a Fool is a 1962 British Metrocolor crime film directed by Robert Stevens and starring Susan Hayward and Peter Finch. It was made by Eaton and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in CinemaScope and produced by Anatole de Grunwald from a screenplay by Karl Tunberg based on the 1958 novel of the same title by Audrey Erskine Lindop. The music score was by Ron Goodwin and the cinematography by Harry Waxman.
Too Many Crooks is a 1959 British black comedy film directed by Mario Zampi and starring Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Brenda De Banzie, Sidney James, Bernard Bresslaw and Vera Day.
The Sleeping Tiger is a 1954 British film noir directed by Joseph Losey and starring Alexis Smith, Dirk Bogarde and Alexander Knox. It was Losey's first British feature, which he directed under the pseudonym of Victor Hanbury due to being blacklisted in the McCarthy Era. It was shot at Walton Studios and on location in London. The film's sets were designed by the art director John Stoll. It was released by Anglo-Amalgamated while in America it was distributed by Astor Pictures.
Crooks and Coronets is a 1969 British crime comedy film written and directed by Jim O'Connolly and starring Telly Savalas, Edith Evans, Warren Oates, Cesar Romero and Harry H. Corbett.
Non-Stop New York is a 1937 British science fiction crime film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring John Loder, Anna Lee and Francis L. Sullivan. It is based on the 1936 novel Sky Steward by Ken Attiwill. A woman who can clear an innocent man of the charge of murder is pursued by gangsters onto a luxurious transatlantic flying boat.
Two and Two Make Six, is a 1962 black and white British romantic comedy film directed by Freddie Francis and starring George Chakiris and Janette Scott.
Philip Asheton Tonge was an English actor. Born into a theatrical family, he was a child actor, making his stage debut at the age of five. Among the stars with whom he performed while he was a boy were Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Ellen Terry and Johnston Forbes-Robertson. His colleagues as child actors included Hermione Gingold, Mary Glynne, Esmé Wynne-Tyson and Noël Coward.
Under Age is a 1941 American crime film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Nan Grey, Alan Baxter, Mary Anderson, and Tom Neal.
Elspeth Duxbury was a British actress.
The Lone Wolf in London is a 1947 American mystery crime film directed by Leslie Goodwins and starring Gerald Mohr, Nancy Saunders and Eric Blore. The picture features the fictional Scotland Yard detective the Lone Wolf who travels to London, and solves the mystery of some missing jewels. It was the penultimate Lone Wolf film, followed by The Lone Wolf and His Lady in 1949, and the last for Mohr in the lead role.