Wonderful Life | |
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Directed by | Sidney J. Furie |
Written by | Peter Myers and Ronald Cass |
Produced by | Kenneth Harper |
Starring | Cliff Richard Walter Slezak Susan Hampshire The Shadows |
Cinematography | Kenneth Higgins |
Edited by | Jack Slade |
Music by | Stanley Black |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Warner-Pathé (UK) American International Pictures (US) |
Release date |
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Running time | 113 minutes (U.K.) [1] 83 minutes (U.S.) [2] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Wonderful Life (U.S.: Swingers' Paradise) [2] is a 1964 British film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Cliff Richard, Walter Slezak, Susan Hampshire and The Shadows. [3] It is the third in a series of film musicals starring Richard following The Young Ones (1961) and Summer Holiday (1963). It was written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass, and choreographed by Gillian Lynne.
Jonnie and his bandmates work as waiters on a travelling ferry. Through a pyrotechnics accident, the power on the ferry cuts off and the group are fired on the spot, stranded on a tiny boat with nothing but their instruments. They float around in the Atlantic Ocean until they reach the Canary Islands.
The group ends up in a sand dune, miserable and confused, wondering what to do next. They are briefly confused by a mirage of a ferry but then decide to set off again in the direction they were originally heading. Jonnie spots a figure on an out-of-control camel and rushes to save her, but discovers that he had accidentally ruined a scene being filmed for a movie. Despite the disruption, director Lloyd Davis offers him a job as a stunt double and gives the rest of Jonnie's group jobs as runners.
Later that evening, Jonnie spots a blonde woman sitting at his opposite table reading from a script. Her name is Jenny and she doesn't believe that she is a good enough actress to be the leading lady. Jonnie tells her to ignore the cameras and the crew watching her, and imagine that she isn't acting. The advice does not help her and Lloyd regrets hiring her.
Jonnie's band realise they could cheer everyone up by making the movie a musical, disguising their spare camera behind various objects. The group race through the filming under Lloyd and Jenny's noses, filming a musical number by telling Jenny to sing her script along with the music secretly played by Jonnie's band hiding behind a wall. They are caught by an eavesdropping Lloyd who threatens to fire them, but Jonnie convinces him not to. Lloyd smugly tells him that he will allow them to continue but not with any of his equipment. Jonnie and his friends decide to film when the actual team is not around to witness, and borrow a camera, but worry about filming the finale without Jenny's knowledge. In a restaurant, they discuss their plans and make jokes at Lloyd's expense, unaware that Lloyd and Jenny are on an adjacent table. Lloyd, who is revealed as Jenny's father, vows to stop them and orders Jenny not to go on set the next day.
Jonnie finds Jenny at the nearest swimming pool and begs her to help them. She agrees, snapping that she never wants to see him again. When filming is over, Lloyd is disappointed that his final cut for the film isn't up to his standard and Jonnie isn't happy about the musical adaptation either. They decide to join forces and combine their movies, rewriting the tale as a story about two brothers and a princess. It is shown at the movie premiere and the audience's reception is positive. Lloyd expresses his gratitude to Jonnie during the applause and tells him that Jenny wants to marry him.
A soundtrack album was released in 1964 credited to Cliff Richard with The Shadows.
The film was shot, in Techniscope, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city in Spain, and the "desert" scenes shot on Maspalomas sand dunes on Gran Canaria island, Canary Islands.[ citation needed ]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Saddled with a more than usually imbecilic story, Sidney Furie has still managed to make a likeably bouncy, if not very good film. ... The humour ... is depressingly unfunny; and the musical numbers, with choreography patterned some way after West Side Story , are robbed of most of their effect by the fact that they are danced by non-dancing principals, while the real dancers are kept as a background chorus. On the credit side, however, are a genial performance by Walter Slezak, the likeable Cliff Richard, a lively twist number on the beach involving the entire film unit, and especially a lengthy 'potted history of the movies' ... Like Summer Holiday, in fact, Wonderful Life has more good intentions than accomplishments, but it is kept going by Sidney Furie's amiable, unpretentious drive" [4]
According to Kine Weekly , it was among the ten most popular films of the year at the British box office in 1964. [5]
Sir Cliff Richard is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
Wonderful Life may refer to:
Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis, is an English actress known for her many television and film roles. She is a three-time Emmy Award winner, winning for The Forsyte Saga in 1970, The First Churchills in 1969, and for Vanity Fair in 1973. Her other television credits include The Pallisers (1974), The Grand (1997–98) and Monarch of the Glen (2000–2005).
Walter Slezak was an Austrian-born film and stage actor active between 1922 and 1976. He mainly appeared in German films before migrating to the United States in 1930 and performing in numerous Hollywood productions.
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John Henry Rostill was an English musician, bassist and composer, recruited by the Shadows to replace Brian Locking. He wrote many of the songs by the Shadows including "The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt" in 1964. He wrote or co-wrote three songs which were massive hits in the United States—"Let Me Be There", "If You Love Me, Let Me Know" and "Please Mr. Please"—but died before seeing them succeed.
Summer Holiday is a 1963 British CinemaScope and Technicolor musical film starring singer Cliff Richard. The film was directed by Peter Yates, produced by Kenneth Harper. The original screenplay was written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass.
The Jazz Singer is a 1980 American musical drama film directed by Richard Fleischer and produced by Jerry Leider. The film stars Neil Diamond, Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz, and tells the story of a young singer who is torn between tradition and pursuing his dreams as a pop singer. Based on the 1925 play of the same name by Samson Raphaelson, it is the fourth film adaptation, following the 1927 and the 1952 theatrical adaptions, and a 1959 television adaptation.
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Sidney Joseph Furie is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his extensive work in both British and American cinema between the 1960s and early 1980s. Like his contemporaries Norman Jewison and Ted Kotcheff, he was one of the earliest Canadian directors to achieve mainstream critical and financial success outside their native country at a time when its film industry was virtually nonexistent. He won a BAFTA Film Award and was nominated for a Palme d'Or for his work on the acclaimed spy thriller The Ipcress File (1965) starring Michael Caine.
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Kenneth Harper (1913–1998) was an English film producer. He produced 13 films between 1954 and 1973. He was a member of the jury at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival.
Wonderful Life is a soundtrack album by Cliff Richard with The Shadows to the 1964 film Wonderful Life. It is their third film soundtrack album and Richard's eleventh album overall. The album reached number 2 in the UK Albums Chart, spending 8 weeks in the top 3 and 23 weeks on in the top 20, but was a marked decline from their previous soundtrack album Summer Holiday that had spent 14 weeks at number 1.
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