Three Men in a Boat | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ken Annakin |
Written by | Hubert Gregg Vernon Harris Jerome K. Jerome (novel) |
Produced by | John Woolf (uncredited) Jack Clayton |
Starring | Laurence Harvey Jimmy Edwards David Tomlinson Shirley Eaton |
Cinematography | Eric Cross |
Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
Music by | John Addison |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Independent Film Distributors |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £247,137 [1] |
Box office | £212,723 [2] |
Three Men in a Boat is a 1956 British CinemaScope colour comedy film directed by Ken Annakin, starring Laurence Harvey, Jimmy Edwards, David Tomlinson and Shirley Eaton. [3] It was written by Hubert Gregg and Vernon Harris based on the 1889 novel of the same name by Jerome K. Jerome.
The film is set in the Edwardian era. Harris, J, and George want to get away from it all. They decide to go on holiday boating up the River Thames to Oxford, taking with them their dog Montmorency. George is happy to get away from his job at the bank. Harris is glad to get away from Mrs. Willis, who is pressing him to marry her daughter Clara. And 'J' is more than anxious to take a holiday from his wife, Ethelbertha.
George meets three girls, Sophie Clutterbuck and sisters Bluebell and Primrose Porterhouse, who are also taking a ride up the river, and he hopes to see them again. The travellers get into various complications with the weather, the river, the boat, food, the Hampton Court Maze, tents, rain and locks. They connect with the girls again, and when things appear to be becoming interesting for the men, Mrs. Willis and her daughter and Ethelbertha show up, and things become even more interesting.
The film was the 12th most popular movie at the British box office in 1957. [4]
According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was "in the money" at the British box office in 1957. [5]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Jimmy Edwards and David Tomlinson should have been ideally cast in Jerome's delightful comedy. Unfortunately, the curious adaptation and clumsy handling have effectively destroyed most of the charm and humour of the original book. The slapstick is crude and uninventive." [6]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "The ensemble, including David Tomlinson, is amiability itself, while the parasol-toting girls are as radiant as the golden days of yesteryear." [7]
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "mediocre", writing: "Colourful comedy lacks Jerome's original humour – just isn't funny." [8]
Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success.
David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson was an English stage, film, and television actor, singer and comedian. Having been described as both a leading man and a character actor, he is primarily remembered for his roles as authority figure George Banks in Mary Poppins, fraudulent magician Professor Emelius Browne in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and as hapless antagonist Peter Thorndyke in The Love Bug. Tomlinson was posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend in 2002.
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty.
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Three Men in a Boat is a 1933 British comedy film directed by Graham Cutts and starring William Austin, Edmund Breon, Billy Milton and Davy Burnaby. It is based on the 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome which depicts three men and a dog's adventure during a boat trip along the River Thames.
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