The Captain's Table

Last updated

The Captain's Table (1959)
The Captain's Table FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Jack Lee
Written by Bryan Forbes
Jack Whiting
Nicholas Phipps
Based on The Captain's Table
by Richard Gordon
Produced by Joseph Janni
Starring John Gregson
Donald Sinden
Peggy Cummins
Nadia Gray
Maurice Denham
Cinematography Christopher Challis
Edited by Frederick Wilson
Music by Frank Cordell
Production
company
Distributed byRank Film Distributors
Release date
6 January 1959
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Captain's Table is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Jack Lee based upon a novel by Richard Gordon. It stars John Gregson, Donald Sinden, Peggy Cummins and Nadia Gray, and featured Maurice Denham, Joan Sims, John Le Mesurier, Richard Wattis and Reginald Beckwith in leading supporting roles.

Contents

The film is based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Richard Gordon. This was later adapted into the 1971 German film The Captain starring Heinz Rühmann.

Plot

After serving all his working life with the South Star line, exclusively in cargo ships, Captain Albert Ebbs meets his employer (John le Mesurier) and is finally given command (albeit temporarily) of the SS Queen Adelaide, a cruise liner sailing from London to Sydney. An excellent seaman, he finds that he now has many social obligations that he does not have the skills to fulfil. He must preside at the captain's table, host cocktail parties, judge beauty contests and dance with the lady passengers. He must also cope with amorous widows, young couples who want him to marry them and a blustering ex-army major who claims to have the ear of the chairman of the shipping line.

To add to his woes, most of the officers and crew, led by the chief purser, are on the fiddle. The captain doesn't fully realise this until the last night of the cruise, when champagne being served is revealed to be cider, with the crew pocketing the considerable profits.

All comes out well - just. The captain finds himself engaged to be married to an attractive widow, the chief officer is also engaged to a young heiress, and the larcenous officers are arrested by Sydney police. [1]

Cast

Production

The film was based on a 1954 novel by Richard Gordon, who had written Doctor in the House and its sequels which had been successfully filmed by the Rank Organisation. The film was made by producer Jack Janni and director Jack Lee who had made A Town Like Alice and Robbery Under Arms. Jack Lee later recalled:

I thought I'd like to make a comedy, although I didn’t know anything about comedy. I said, “All we need are funny scenes, funny lines, actors who can pull faces, and that’s it’. Joe got a lot of marvellous people writing for it— Bryan Forbes, Nicholas Phipps and John Whiting —and they wouldn’t let me near the script. I liked Nadia Gray very much indeed. She brought a very different quality to the film, living as she did in Paris. Donald Sinden was very good too; it was a fairly conventional part for him, but when I saw the film again recently I was surprised at just how good he was. And we had some good old ham actors in it, like Reginald Beckwith, camping away like mad. [2]

Dirk Bogarde had been preparing a film about Lawrence of Arabia written by Terence Rattigan and directed by Anthony Asquith which was cancelled by Rank in February 1959 shortly before shooting was to begin. Rank offered no explanation but head of production Earl St John offered the lead in The Captain's Table as compensation. Bogarde turned it down and John Gregson played the lead instead. [3]

Donald Sinden says Joseph Janni told him the film would involve three months' filming around the Greek Islands so the actor agreed to make it. Then this was changed to filming around the Channel Islands, then changed again to the Tilbury Docks. "So for three months we stayed in Southend and commuted to the Docks where myriad arc lamps simulated the Mediterranean sun while the girls tried to hide their goose pimples," wrote Sinden. [4]

Filming started on 21 July 1958. [5]

Michael Blakemore has a small part. [6]

Reception

Variety called it "somewhat scrappy but amusingly lighthearted". [7]

According to Kinematograph Weekly the film performed "better than average" at the British box office in 1959. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dirk Bogarde</span> English actor (1921–1999)

Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".

<i>The Cruel Sea</i> (1953 film) 1953 film by Charles Frend

The Cruel Sea is a 1953 British war film starring Jack Hawkins, Donald Sinden, Denholm Elliott, Stanley Baker, Liam Redmond, Virginia McKenna and Moira Lister. Made by Ealing Studios seven years after the end of the Second World War, it was directed by Charles Frend and produced by Leslie Norman.

<i>Doctor in the House</i> 1954 British film

Doctor in the House is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty Box. The screenplay, by Nicholas Phipps, Richard Gordon and Ronald Wilkinson, is based on the 1952 novel by Gordon, and follows a group of students through medical school.

<i>The Password Is Courage</i> 1962 British film

The Password Is Courage is a 1962 British comedy-drama war film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, based on John Castle's 1954 World War II memoir of the same name. Written, produced, and directed by Andrew L. Stone, the film stars Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy, and Alfred Lynch. It is a lighthearted take on the true story of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, written under the pseudonym John Castle by Ronald Charles Payne and John Williams Garrod.

<i>Above Us the Waves</i> 1955 film

Above Us the Waves is a 1955 British war film about human torpedo and midget submarine attacks in Norwegian fjords against the German battleship Tirpitz. Directed by Ralph Thomas, it is based on two true-life attacks by British commando frogmen, first using Chariot manned torpedoes in Operation Title in 1942, and then X-Craft midget submarines in Operation Source in 1943. Filmed at Pinewood Studios, England, with outdoor scenes in Guernsey, some of the original war equipment was used in the film.

<i>Rockets Galore!</i> 1958 British film

Rockets Galore! is a 1957 British comedy film directed by Michael Relph and starring Jeannie Carson, Donald Sinden and Roland Culver. The sequel to Whisky Galore!, it was much less successful than its predecessor.

<i>Boys in Brown</i> 1949 British film

Boys in Brown is a 1949 black and white British drama film directed by Montgomery Tully, which depicts life in a borstal for young offenders. It stars Jack Warner, Richard Attenborough, Dirk Bogarde and Jimmy Hanley. It is based on a 1940 play by the actor Reginald Beckwith.

<i>Upstairs and Downstairs</i> 1959 British film

Upstairs and Downstairs is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Michael Craig, Anne Heywood, Mylène Demongeot, Claudia Cardinale, James Robertson Justice, Joan Sims, Joan Hickson and Sid James. It features the first English-language performance of Claudia Cardinale.

<i>Desert Mice</i> 1959 British film

Desert Mice is a 1959 British comedy film featuring Alfred Marks, Sid James, Dora Bryan, Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier and Liz Fraser. A group of ENSA entertainers with the British army in the North Africa desert during the Second World War thwart a Nazi plan. The title is a play on the Desert Rats.

<i>These Dangerous Years</i> 1957 British film

These Dangerous Years is a 1957 British drama musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring George Baker, Frankie Vaughan, Carole Lesley, Thora Hird, Kenneth Cope, David Lodge and John Le Mesurier.

<i>The Moonraker</i> 1958 film

The Moonraker is a British swashbuckler film made in 1957 and released in 1958 and set in the English Civil War. It was directed by David MacDonald and starred George Baker, Sylvia Syms, Marius Goring, Gary Raymond, Peter Arne, John Le Mesurier and Patrick Troughton. It is based on the 1952 play of the same title by Arthur Watkyn. It was shot at Elstree Studios with sets designed by the art director Robert Jones

<i>Hot Enough for June</i> 1964 British film

Hot Enough for June is a 1964 British spy comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas, and starring Dirk Bogarde with Sylva Koscina in her English film debut, Robert Morley and Leo McKern. It is based on the 1960 novel The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson. The film was cut by twenty minutes and retitled Agent 8+3⁄4 for the US release by the American distributor Central Distributing.

<i>We Joined the Navy</i> 1962 British film

We Joined the Navy is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Wendy Toye and starring Kenneth More, Lloyd Nolan, Joan O'Brien, Derek Fowlds, Graham Crowden, Esma Cannon and John Le Mesurier. Produced by Daniel M. Angel, it was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by John Winton, a former Royal Navy lieutenant commander.

Earl St. John was an American film producer in overall charge of production for The Rank Organisation at Pinewood Studios from 1950 to 1964, and was credited as executive producer on 131 films. He was known as the "Earl of Pinewood". John Davis of Rank called him "the greatest showman that The Rank Organisation has ever had, and probably the greatest showman to have lived in this country. "

<i>Penny Princess</i> 1952 film

Penny Princess is a 1952 British Technicolor comedy film written and directed by Val Guest and starring Yolande Donlan, Dirk Bogarde and A. E. Matthews. It was made by Guest for his own production company, Conquest Productions. The film stars his future wife Donlan, who was Guest's production company partner, and features Reginald Beckwith, the other partner in Conquest Productions. It was released by General Film Distributors. It was distributed in America the following year by Universal Pictures.

<i>Doctor in Love</i> 1960 British film

Doctor in Love is a 1960 British comedy film, the fourth of the seven films in the Doctor series, starring James Robertson Justice as Sir Lancelot Spratt and Michael Craig as Dr Richard Hare. This was the first film in the series not to feature Dirk Bogarde, although he did return for the next film in the series Doctor in Distress. It was loosely based on the 1957 novel of the same title by Richard Gordon.

<i>Left Right and Centre</i> 1959 British film

Left Right and Centre is a 1959 British satirical comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Ian Carmichael, Patricia Bredin, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker and Alastair Sim. It was produced by Frank Launder. A political comedy, it follows the events of a by-election in a small English town.

<i>Operation Bullshine</i> 1959 British film

Operation Bullshine is a 1959 British colour comedy film directed by Gilbert Gunn and starring Donald Sinden, Barbara Murray and Carole Lesley. The working title of the film was Girls in Arms that features as a marching song in the film. Gunn had filmed Girls at Sea the previous year. The new title, based on an American euphemism for a very British word with the same meaning (bullshite), comes from the frenzied activity preparing for their brigadier's surprise inspection. The film features 1956 Olympic gold medallist Judy Grinham as a physical training instructor.

Richard John Gregson was a British talent agent, film producer and screenwriter.

<i>The Captains Table</i> (novel) 1954 novel by Richard Gordon

The Captain's Table is a 1954 comedy novel by the British writer Richard Gordon. The captain of a rundown cargo ship is transferred by the company to command a luxury liner.

References

  1. ↑ "The Captain's Table (1959)". BFI. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  2. ↑ McFarlane, Brian (1992). Sixty voices : celebrities recall the golden age of British cinema. BFI. p. 159.
  3. ↑ Coldstream, John (2004). Dirk Bogarde : the authorised biography. p. 304. ISBN   9780753819852.
  4. ↑ Sinden, Donald (1982). A touch of the memoirs. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 240. ISBN   9780340262351.
  5. ↑ "Hollywood Production Pulse". Variety. 6 August 1958. p. 20.
  6. ↑ Blakemore, Michael (2004). Arguments with England : a memoir. p. 188-189.
  7. ↑ "The Captain's Table". Variety. 14 January 1959. p. 16.
  8. ↑ Billings, Josh (17 December 1959). "Other better-than-average offerings". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.