The Love Match

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The Love Match
"The Love Match" (1955).jpg
British quad poster
Directed by David Paltenghi
Written by Geoffrey Orme (screenplay)
Glenn Melvyn (additional dialogue)
Based onplay The Love Match by Glenn Melvyn
Produced by Maclean Rogers
Starring Arthur Askey
Cinematography Arthur Grant
Edited byJoseph Sterling
Music by Wilfred Burns
Production
companies
Beaconsfield Productions
Group 3
Distributed by British Lion Films
Release date
  • February 1955 (1955-02)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£174,991 (UK) [1]

The Love Match is a 1955 British black and white comedy film directed by David Paltenghi and starring Arthur Askey, Glenn Melvyn, Thora Hird and Shirley Eaton. [2] A football-mad railway engine driver and his fireman are desperate to get back in time to see a match. It was based on the 1953 play of the same name by Glenn Melvyn, one of the stars of the film. [3] A TV spin-off series, Love and Kisses, appeared later in 1955. [4]

Contents

Cast

Production

The film was an early appearance from Shirley Eaton. [5]

Release

Box Office

According to the National Film Finance Corporation, the film made a comfortable profit. [6] [7] According to Kinematograph Weekly it was a "money maker" at the British box office in 1955. [8]

The reported profit was £34,000. [9]

Critical reception

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "good", writing: "Good, noisy north country comedy. Old jokes notch remarkably high scoring rate." [10]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Although this is an admirable enough comedy, it is also one of those unforgivably patronising pictures that bourgeois British film makers believed presented an authentic picture of working-class life. Arthur Askey stars as a football crazy railway employee whose passion for a team of no-hopers lands him in all sorts of trouble. Struggling against a shortage of genuinely funny situations, the cast does well to keep the action alive. The highlight is Askey's heckling of the referee, a wonderful moment of football hooliganism." [11]

TV Guide noted a "highly enjoyable farce." [12]

Britmovie called it a "boisterous Lancashire comedy with a rapid succession of old jokes." [13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p504
  2. ↑ "The Love Match (1955)". BFI. Archived from the original on 18 January 2009.
  3. ↑ Goble, Alan (8 September 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. ISBN   9783110951943.
  4. ↑ "Love And Kisses (Cast)". phill.co.uk.
  5. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (2 September 2025). "Not Quite Movie Stars: Shirley Eaton". Filmink. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  6. ↑ U.S. MONEY BEHIND 30% OF BRITISH FILMS: Problems for the Board of Trade The Manchester Guardian 4 May 1956: 7
  7. ↑ Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (2003). British Cinema of The 1950s The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press USA. p. 29.
  8. ↑ "Other Money Makers of 1955". Kinematograph Weekly. 15 December 1955. p. 5.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Quinlan, David (1984). British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 340. ISBN   0-7134-1874-5.
  11. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 565. ISBN   9780992936440.
  12. ↑ "The Love Match". TVGuide.com.
  13. ↑ "The Love Match". britmovie.co.uk.


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