Not Now, Darling (film)

Last updated

Not Now, Darling
Not Now, Darling quad poster.jpg
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by
Written by
Starring
Cinematography
Edited by Peter Thornton
Music by Cyril Ornadel
Distributed by
Release date
  • 1973 (1973)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Not Now, Darling is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Ray Cooney and David Croft and starring Trudi Van Doorn, Leslie Phillips and Julie Ege. [1] It was adapted from the 1967 play of the same title by John Chapman and Ray Cooney. [2] The film is a farce centred on a shop in London that sells fur coats. A loosely related sequel Not Now, Comrade was released in 1976. [3]

Contents

It was the last film to feature appearances by Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert who had been a leading celebrity couple in the 1930s and 1940s. [4]

Plot

Gilbert Bodley plans to sell an expensive mink to mobster Harry McMichaell, cheaply, for his wife Janie. Janie is Gilbert's mistress, and Gilbert wants to close the deal. However, instead of doing his own dirty work, he gets his reluctant partner Arnold Crouch to do it for him. Things go awry when Harry plans to buy the same coat for his own mistress, Sue Lawson, and the whole plan fails.

Cast

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Not Now, Darling is one of the first cinema films to employ the Multivista system, which – by electronically linking a number of cameras to screens from which the director can select the image he wants – enables shooting and editing to take place simultaneously. It's a system which ideally suited to the filming of stage performances, a way of breaking up long sequences in confined settings; but in the case of Not Now Darling its advantages (other than economic ones) are hardly apparent. Minimally adapted for the screen from a West End play and with the bulk of its action still set in the furrier's showroom, the film retains the stock ingredients of stage farce: hairbreadth exits and entrances, mistaken identity, characters talking at cross purposes and indulging in prolonged double entendre on such subjects as Barbara Windsor's tits ("You know, birds"). Already weighted down by this level of verbal invention, the flow of the action is further broken by the directors' repetitive habit of employing close-ups for every punchline; and the original sense of accumulating chaos, fostered in part by the monotony of a stalls-eye-view, is here entirely dissipated. Even such experienced comic actors as Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims are unable, in the circumstances, to inject any pace into the proceedings" [5]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "What an appalling waste of a remarkable cast that provides a comic link between the golden age of music hall and the Carry On s. Popular 1930s husband-and-wife team Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge were reunited on screen for the first time in 12 years for this clumsy version of Ray Cooney's long-running West End farce. Leslie Phillips holds this threadbare piece together, as the furrier up to his neck in girlfriends and cheap minks, but it's all rather tatty." [6] British film critic Leslie Halliwell said: "Interminable film version (in Multivista, a shoot-and-edit equivalent to TV taping which gives a dingy look and can only work in a single set) of a West End farce which wasn't marvellous to begin with." [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leslie Phillips</span> British actor (1924–2022)

Leslie Samuel Phillips was an English actor. He achieved prominence in the 1950s, playing smooth, upper-class comic roles utilising his "Ding dong" and "Hello" catchphrases. He appeared in the Carry On and Doctor in the House film series as well as the long-running BBC radio comedy series The Navy Lark. In his later career, Phillips took on dramatic parts including a BAFTA-nominated role alongside Peter O'Toole in Venus (2006). He provided the voice of the Sorting Hat in three of the Harry Potter films.

<i>The L-Shaped Room</i> 1962 British film

The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 British drama romance film directed by Bryan Forbes, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Lynne Reid Banks. It tells the story of Jane Fosset, a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a cheap London boarding house, befriending a young man, Toby, in the building. The work is considered part of the kitchen sink realism school of British drama. The film reflected a trend in British films of greater frankness about sex and displays a sympathetic treatment of outsiders "unmarried mothers, lesbian or black" as well as a "largely natural and non-judgmental handling of their problems". As director, Forbes represents "a more romantic, wistful type of realism" than that of Tony Richardson or Lindsay Anderson.

<i>The Smallest Show on Earth</i> 1957 British film by Basil Dearden

The Smallest Show on Earth is a 1957 British comedy film, directed by Basil Dearden, and starring Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford. The screenplay was written by William Rose and John Eldridge from an original story by William Rose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cicely Courtneidge</span> British actor (1893–1980)

Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge, was an Australian-born British actress, comedian and singer. The daughter of the producer and playwright Robert Courtneidge, she was appearing in his productions in the West End by the age of 16, and was quickly promoted from minor to major roles in his Edwardian musical comedies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Cargill</span> English actor (1918–1996)

Patrick Cargill was an English actor remembered for his lead role in the British television sitcom Father, Dear Father.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Hulbert</span> British actor, director, screenwriter and singer(1892–1978)

John Norman Hulbert was a British actor, director, screenwriter and singer, specializing primarily in comedy productions, and often working alongside his wife (Dame) Cicely Courtneidge.

<i>The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins</i> 1971 British film by Graham Stark

The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British sketch comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing talent, including Graham Chapman, Spike Milligan, Barry Cryer and Galton and Simpson. The sketches are linked by animation sequences overseen by Bob Godfrey's animation studio. The music score is by British jazz musician Roy Budd, cinematography by Harvey Harrison and editing by Rod Nelson-Keys and Roy Piper. It was produced by Tigon Pictures and distributed in the U.K. by Tigon Film Distributors Ltd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Ege</span> Norwegian actress (1943-2008)

Julie Ege was a Norwegian actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder. She appeared in many British films of the 1960s and 1970s.

<i>Woman in a Dressing Gown</i> 1957 British film

Woman in a Dressing Gown is a 1957 British drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, and Carole Lesley.

Raymond George Alfred Cooney OBE is an English playwright, actor, and director.

<i>The Good Die Young</i> 1954 British film by Lewis Gilbert

The Good Die Young is a 1954 British crime film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Laurence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, Joan Collins, Stanley Baker, Richard Basehart and John Ireland. It was made by Remus Films from a screenplay based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Richard Macaulay. It tells the story of four men in London with no criminal past whose marriages and finances are collapsing and, meeting in a pub, are tempted to redeem their situations by a robbery.

<i>Not Now, Comrade</i> 1976 British film by Ray Cooney and Harold Snoad

Not Now, Comrade is a 1976 British comedy film directed by Ray Cooney and starring Leslie Phillips, Windsor Davies, Don Estelle and Ian Lavender. It was shot at Elstree studios as the sequel to Not Now, Darling (1973), and was the second in an intended series of "Not Now" films, with Not Now, Prime Minister pencilled in as a follow-up. But box office returns for this film, unlike those of its predecessor, were disappointing. It was the only feature film dicected by Harold Snoad.

Not Now, Darling is a 1967 farce written by English playwrights John Chapman and Ray Cooney, first staged at the Richmond Theatre, in Richmond, England prior to a long West End run. The production starred Donald Sinden and Bernard Cribbins, with Jill Melford, Mary Kenton, Brian Wilde, Carmel McSharry and Ann Sidney.

<i>Jacks the Boy</i> 1932 film

Jack's the Boy is a 1932 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Francis Lister and Peter Gawthorne. It became well known for its song "The Flies Crawled Up the Window", sung by Hulbert, which was released as a record and proved a major hit. The film was released in the U.S. as Night and Day.

<i>The Night We Dropped a Clanger</i> 1959 British film by Darcy Conyers

The Night We Dropped a Clanger, is a 1959 black and white British comedy film directed by Darcy Conyers and starring Brian Rix, Cecil Parker, William Hartnell and Leslie Phillips.

<i>Take My Tip</i> 1937 British film

Take My Tip is a 1937 British musical comedy film directed by Herbert Mason, produced by Michael Balcon and starring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Harold Huth and Frank Cellier.

<i>Just My Luck</i> (1957 film) 1957 British film

Just My Luck is a 1957 British sports comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Norman Wisdom, Margaret Rutherford, Jill Dixon and Leslie Phillips.

<i>My Wifes Lodger</i> 1952 British film

My Wife's Lodger is a 1952 British comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Dominic Roche, Olive Sloane and Leslie Dwyer. The screenplay concerns a soldier who returns home after the Second World War only to find a spiv lodger has established himself in his place. It was based on the play My Wife's Lodger written by Roche.

<i>Soldiers of the King</i> (film) 1933 British film

Soldiers of the King is a 1933 British historical comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Cicely Courtneidge, Edward Everett Horton and Anthony Bushell. It was Courtneidge's fourth film, and the first she appeared in without her husband Jack Hulbert. Courtneidge plays the matriarch of a music hall family, in a plot that switches between the Victorian era and the 1930s present.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwen Farrar</span>

Gwendoline "Gwen" Farrar was an English duettist, cellist, singer, actress and comedian.

References

  1. "Not Tonight, Darling". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  2. "Not Now Darling (1972)". BFI. Archived from the original on 26 April 2020.
  3. "Not Now, Comrade (1976)". BFI. Archived from the original on 2 October 2017.
  4. "BFI Screenonline: Courtneidge, Cicely (1893-1980) Biography". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  5. "Not Now, Darling". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 40 (468): 105. 1 January 1973 via ProQuest.
  6. Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 671. ISBN   9780992936440.
  7. Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 741. ISBN   0586088946.