Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
THE GO-BETWEEN (IMC Vision). L P Hartley’s novel, set in 1900, is a good read. It was odd that the BBC should have aired this adaptation at the same time as ITV’s Downton Abbey and thus lose the very audience for whom it was made. You may have seen the Joseph Losey film with Julie Christie and Alan Bates. This version is equally sensitive. Directed by Pete Travis it is beautifully acted and photographed. Jack Hollington is cast as the 12-year-old who acts as messenger for the doomed lovers (lovely Joanna Vanderbam and sturdy Ben Batt), a class thing and a traumatic experience from which the poor lad never recovers. Lesley Manville is excellent as the girl’s mother.
THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE (StudioCanal). Director Frank Launder gets a lot of comic mileage out of a mix-up at the Ministry of Education: a girls’ school is billeted on a boys’ school. This fondly remembered 1950 farce has definitive performances by Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford as the two heads coping with inspection from parents and governors. Sim is harassed, dithering and doleful. Rutherford (who had played the role 400 times on the stage in John Dighton’s play) is formidable: a classic confrontation between two great eccentrics, foils and rivals. The film was a turning point for Joyce Grenfell. The role of toothy, gawky (“Call me sausage!”) games mistress brought her to the notice of a much wider public.
THE JESSIE MATTHEWS REVUE VOLUME 4 (Network) contains two films.
THE GOOD COMPANIONS is the 1933 film version of J B Priestley’s immensely popular picaresque novel. The Good Companions are a pierrot troupe who are saved from bankruptcy by three people who want to escape from their boring lives: Edward Chapman is Jess Oakroyd (a scene-stealing role), Mary Glynne is Miss Trant and John Gielgud is Inigo Jollifant. The major surprise for many people will be seeing a very young Gielgud (who had appeared in the stage version) in the role of juvenile lead singing and flirting with Jessie Matthews and acting as “feed” to Max Miller.
SAILING ALONG Jessie Matthews plays a bright-eyed, toe-tapping bargee who gives up the theatre immediately after her successful stage debut. She says she prefers a life on the dirty Thames. Now who on earth is going to believe that? Roland Young is in good form. This 1938 film is almost worth watching for the final extended dance number.
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