December 26 1967

Ealing Studios Program #6

An extremely pleasing trifle that was rather lost in the shuffle even in England, where its release collided with the outbreak of war, Return to Yesterday is yet another reminder of the compact and tasteful films that Robert Stevenson was turning out with such regularity in his pre-Hollywood years. Its plot is little more than a vignette, but the pleasant evocation of a British seaside resort, the rich gallery of characters, the neat interweaving of pathos and comedy, and the theatrical yet witty dialogue makes it all a minor delight, with the credit due perhaps as much to the original author (Robert Morley) as to scenarist/director Stevenson. It is extremely well cast and acted, and Anna Lee (Mrs. Stevenson), a charming if limited player, here even manages to keep her one irritating mannerism (an over-use of a sunny smile that ultimately seems artificial, a trick even John Ford couldn't shake lose from her) well under control. Her performance here is quite one of her best. Although no great dramatic heights are scaled or plumbed, the film does occasionally achieve emotional effects that are quite moving, and the poignantly underplayed climax has much of the sensitivity of the final scene of Barrie's A Kiss for Cinderella. Not the least enjoyable of the film's many assets is a sprightly musical score which makes good use of such traditional English songs and ballads as "Uncle Tom Cobbly", "Barbara Allen" and "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" (All right, the last-named is Scotch - but that still puts it under British jurisdiction!)

- - - - - Intermission - - - - -

I must admit that I acquired this print largely out of curiosity (I missed its original release in England) and not with any Huffian exposure in mind, but its first exposure (to a 100% American audience) produced such unrestrained laughter that to keep it hidden was out of the question. Maybe we were all taken by surprise by its wit, pace and outrageously blue humor (healthy dirt in British comedies is common-place now, but was quite rare in the war years apart from the occasional punch-line), and by the genuinely zippy and pungent songs, and a subsequent viewing will prove it to be not quite so good after all. But it certainly rates its chance to show its stuff! Oddly enough, in England at the time it was just considered more of the same. There was quite a rash of time-machine comedies, in which leading comics were whisked back to previous eras -Tony Handley in Time Flies, Arthur Askey in King Arthur Was a Gentleman, Sid Field in Cardboard Cavalier -- and Jack Buchanan's When Knights Were Bold from the 30's was being recirculated too. The idea of a male comic imitating Carmen Miranda was also standard stuff then too - both in films and in the music halls; but, today at least, Tommy Trinder's version seems the best of them all. It's an oddly efficient and fast-paced comedy for such an austere documentarian as Harry Watt to have made, and he does run out of steam a little towards the end. The climax veers more to suspense than comedy, and it does lack a good wrap-up gag sequence. But the rest of the film is too good to justify carping -- and anyway, it seems to have been good enough to influence two Italian carbon copies, OK Nero and Nero's Weekend. Tommy Trinder notwithstanding, the richest comedy comes from Francis L. Sullivan, literally immense as Nero, wandering around and uttering such gems as "What delicious debauchery; we can see we're going to make a perfect beast of ourselves!" The orgies may be rather polite in the British manner, but the double-entendres and jokes about eunuchs are quite brash for staid old England.

---- William K. Everson ----