No Room at the Inn | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Directed by | Daniel Birt |
Written by | Ivan Foxwell Dylan Thomas |
Produced by | Ivan Foxwell |
Starring | Freda Jackson Ann Stephens Joan Dowling Joy Shelton |
Cinematography | James Wilson |
Edited by | Charles Hasse |
Music by | Hans May |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Pathé Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 82 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Box office | £193,557 (UK) [1] |
No Room at the Inn is a 1945 play by Joan Temple that became a 1948 film directed by Daniel Birt. Both play and film are presented in flashback mode and share the same subject matter – cruelty, neglect and mental and physical abuse meted out to evacuee children during World War II. Temple's attack on those who turn a blind eye to child abuse, be they public officials or private individuals, was considered frank and uncompromising in its time.
As part of the mass evacuation of children in the early months of World War II, teenage Mary O'Rane is billeted with Mrs Agatha ('Aggie') Voray in an unthreatened area in the north of England. Mary soon discovers that, behind her respectable front, Mrs Voray forces her evacuee charges (five in all) to live in squalor and semi-starvation while spending the money intended for their upkeep on alcohol and personal fripperies. Yet when Mary is visited by her father, Mrs Voray easily convinces him that Mary's allegations are groundless; to Mary's horror, he ends his visit by accompanying Mrs Voray on a pub crawl. Mary's young schoolteacher, Judith Drave, takes her concerns about the children's welfare to the local authorities but is ignored. Mary, meanwhile, is coaxed into petty crime by her fellow evacuee Norma. Matters come to a head when Mrs Voray goes out for the evening and returns to find that her new hat has been damaged. In an alcohol-fuelled fury, she locks little Ronnie in the coal cellar for the night. In the small hours, Mary and Norma sneak out of bed to release him, leading, in an unexpected turn of events, to Mrs Voray's accidental death.
Temple's original title was Weep for Tomorrow, but this was changed before the play went into production. [2] In her stage directions, Temple offered the following description of the central figure, Mrs Voray: "She is about 40, and her black hair, lately 'permed', hangs in curls about her shoulders, making her look rather older than she wishes to appear. Her face is clumsily made-up. She is fond of glassy-looking satin blouses in crude colours ... A cigarette hangs from her lips." [3]
Directed by Anthony Hawtrey, No Room at the Inn opened at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, north London on 10 July 1945, with Freda Jackson, Ursula Howells, Joan Dowling and Ruth Dunning heading a cast of 14. [4] The stage set for the production represented "the living-room of a small house in a 'safe' area" [4] and was created by the Embassy's resident designer Henry Bird, who was also Jackson's husband.
After a provincial tour, Hawtrey's production arrived at the Winter Garden Theatre in Drury Lane, London on 3 May 1946. [5] Presented by impresario Jack Hylton and advertised as 'A New Sensational Drama', the play's run in the West End lasted for 427 performances, closing on 24 May the following year, [6] then touring again. [7] "I consider Miss Joan Temple's timely and full-blooded drama of what can happen to child evacuees in war-time," noted Hawtrey in his introduction to the published text, "to be one of the most perfectly constructed plays of recent years, as well as being a most exciting play to produce, and one with enormous scope for a producer." [8]
In November 1946 the Daily Express devoted space in the paper for a week to a specially prepared version of the play. It explained that it had taken the decision:
"because the terrible and cruel conditions under which Britain's orphan children are still living has not been brought home adequately either to officialdom or to the public at large." [9]
The film version was made by British National Films at the National Studios, Elstree. The screenplay by producer Ivan Foxwell and poet Dylan Thomas made various changes to Temple's play - opening it out to include Mrs Voray's encounters with local tradesmen, the Town Council and, finally, a monied spiv; conflating the extremely similar characters of Kate Grant and Judith Drave into one (Judith); changing the surname of Joan Dowling's character and having her recount a cockney version of the Cinderella story, and radically altering the nature of Mrs Voray's demise. The screenplay subsequently formed the basis of a novelisation by Warwick Mannon (pseudonym of the poet and literary critic Kenneth Hopkins), [10] published by World Film Publications to coincide with the film's release in 1948.
Opening in London on 25 October, with general release following on 22 November, [11] the film was described in the trade paper To-Day's Cinema as "a brutal citation of sordidness and cruelty which has no parallel on British screens." [12] Another reviewer, Virginia Graham in The Spectator, pointed out that "Miss Joan Temple's tormenting play about war-time evacuee children billeted on a drunken slut has been turned into an equally tormenting film. No Room at the Inn gives Miss Freda Jackson ample scope to be as savagely nasty as she pleases, and I must say she is alarmingly successful. Miss [Hermione] Baddeley blowsily supports her, and Miss Joan Dowling is admirable as a pert, blackmailing adolescent." [13]
Trade papers called the film a "notable box office attraction" in British cinemas in 1948. [14]
|
|
Carry On Camping is a 1969 British comedy film, the 17th release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). It features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Terry Scott, Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Bresslaw, Dilys Laye and Peter Butterworth.
Carry On Abroad is a 1972 British comedy film, the 24th release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). The film features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth and Hattie Jacques. It was the 23rd and final appearance for Charles Hawtrey. June Whitfield returned after appearing in Carry On Nurse 13 years earlier. Jimmy Logan and Carol Hawkins made their first of two appearances in the series.
Carry On Nurse is a 1959 British comedy film, the second in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). Of the regular team, it featured Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey, with Hattie Jacques and Leslie Phillips. The film was written by Norman Hudis based on the play Ring for Catty by Patrick Cargill and Jack Beale. It was the top-grossing film of 1959 in the United Kingdom and, with an audience of 10.4 million, had the highest cinema viewing of any of the "Carry On" films. Perhaps surprisingly, it was also highly successful in the United States, where it was reported that it played at some cinemas for three years.
Gwendoline Watford, professionally known after the mid-1950s as Gwen Watford, was an English actress.
Carry On Loving is a 1970 British comedy film, the 20th release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). It features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, Terry Scott and Bernard Bresslaw alongside newcomers Richard O'Callaghan and Imogen Hassall. The dialogue veers toward open bawdiness rather than the evasive innuendo characteristic of the earlier films in the series. There are fictitious locations named for their sexual innuendo, including 'Much-Snogging-On-The-Green', 'Rogerham Mansions' and 'Dunham Road'.
Carry On Matron is a 1972 British comedy film, the 23rd release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). It was released in May 1972. It features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Connor. This was the last Carry on... film for Terry Scott after appearing in seven films. Carry On Matron was the second and last Carry On... for Kenneth Cope.
Katharine Mary Craven Clark was a Canadian actress.
Judith Furse was an English actress.
Joy Winstanley Shelton was an English actress who performed in films, radio and television.
Joan Dowling was a British character actress.
Freda Maud Jackson was an English stage actress who also worked in film and television.
Leonora Mary Johnson, known professionally as Nora Swinburne, was an English actress who appeared in many British films.
Ruth Clifford was an American actress of leading roles in silent films, whose career lasted from that era into the television era.
The Women is a 1939 American comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. The film is based on Clare Boothe Luce's 1936 play of the same name, and was adapted for the screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, who had to make the film acceptable for the Production Code for it to be released.
Women of Twilight is a 1951 play by Sylvia Rayman that became a 1952 film directed by Gordon Parry. The latter stars Freda Jackson, Rene Ray and Lois Maxwell, with a screenplay by Anatole de Grunwald. It was the first British film to receive the recently introduced X certificate.
Two Thousand Women is a 1944 British comedy-drama war film about a German internment camp in Occupied France which holds British women who have been resident in the country. Three RAF aircrewmen, whose bomber has been shot down, enter the camp and are hidden by the women from the Germans.
Beatrice Evelyn Varley was an English actress who appeared in television and film roles between 1936 and 1964. She made her screen debut in the 1936 film Tomorrow We Live and began to portray a variety of character roles in films such as Oh, Mr Porter!, Holiday Camp and The Wicked Lady before moving predominantly into television until she died in 1964.
Anthony John Hawtrey was an English actor and stage director. He began his acting career in 1930 and began directing by 1939. As director of the Embassy Theatre in London, his productions sometimes achieved enough success to transfer to the West End. During his theatre career, Hawtrey also acted in television and on film. He was a member of the Terry family of actors.
Mary Jerrold was an English actress. She was married to actor Hubert Harben, and mother of actress Joan Harben and celebrity chef Philip Harben.
Joan Temple was a British actress and playwright, best known for her play No Room at the Inn which was made into a film of the same name.