GLOWIN' IN THE WIND
Towards the end of St. Martin's Lane (1938) Hollywood beckons for Vivien Leigh. As it was, of course, to do in life itself: the following year found her in a far longer film, Gone with the Wind.
Could this modest, well-packed English film have helped to propel her westwards? Quite possibly. She gives a magnificent performance, frequently in form-fitting striped trousers, as a small-time thief with acting skills who joins - one might say, muscles in upon - three buskers: a group who eke out a living by entertaining the queues outside theatres in the eponymous London district.
And did one of those crowds ever see such a performance as those which Charles Laughton delivers in hopes of some coins in a hat?
Always declamatory, he is here as good as in any of the parts for which he is better known (among this film's classic scenes is one in which he tries to entertain a magistrate: to scant avail). What's more, at the other end of the social scale, there is a supremely smooth Rex Harrison who is beguiled by Vivien Leigh, so much so that he invites her to a smart party (at which she is startled by the custom of dipping cocktail sausages in milk), all of which prompts a leap to her career.
The dancing and singing is as much a delight as the gritty boarding house in which Laughton is holed up (and it is always a delight to see Marie O'Neill, the landlady, but one should like to know the name of the boy who played her son: he innocently relays the news that Laughton has a young woman in his room, information which has the staircase take a pounding). That boy could, at a pinch, still be with us - but certainly long gone are the dog and the cat who turn in proficient performances outside a pub and upon a window ledge.
And when, in such moments, you think that you could not be further surprised, up springs Larry Adler, harmonica and all, to add a Gershwin touch to a tune which Harrison thumps out at the piano in a smart apartment (flat is hardly the word for such rooftop premises).
All this owes much to Clemence Dane. In her time, she was well known as a playwright and novelist, now mainly remembered for inspiring Hitchcock's Murder (she also suggested to Graham Greene the phrase from Hamlet which he used as a title for one of the two novels he did not allow to be reprinted: The Name of Action). Her script is imbued with theatrical life, all of it caught so well by director Tim Whelan whose Q-Planes at this time saw Laurence Olivier at a peak.