Maytime in Mayfair

Trailer—Maytime in Mayfair

source: Maytime in Mayfair

Everything in this film is perfectly delightful - the splendid conversation, the wonderful acting, the sparkling music, the blinding technicolour, nothing is missing concerning qualified comedy and entertainment. The film it reminds you most of is actually "Funny Face" eight years later with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, but the comedy here is more qualified, more witty and funnier. Anna Neagle is always perfect and here matched by Michael Wilding who plays a rather ridiculous fool, but he plays out his follies in such a wonderful way, that you are surprised to find him so funny, which you never guessed he could be. Peter Graves as D'Arcy Davenport is even worse and makes a ludicrous mess of the whole business, that is the business of Haute Couture, which you never could expect to fit into London. The question is whether it does or not. Anna Neagle makes the best of it, Michael Wilding makes a mess of it, and Peter Graves utterly ruins it, without having the slightest intention to, but it just so happens. It's hilarious all the way, the music is irresistible even when it is made fun of, and there are even some significant ballet numbers, and you will be surprised to see Michael Wilding and Anna Neagle performing well together also as dancers. In brief, it couldn't be better.

This was also a Micheal Wilding vehicle.This was before he married Elizabeth Taylor and did American films in the united states.I also just learned that this was the first color film to be broad cast in color t.v. in 56 at Philadelphia.When I saw that a company called nostalgia was releasing this in the united states I guess that it might not be a remastered digital print.I was right .It was an analog video tape print that was used for the VHS version back in the 90's.It's still a good print.The colors are excellent ,jut not sharp.It was produced by Anna's husband ,but also with her help.It's a light comedy love story and plot with some music and dance.It'like Anna's Irene and then Roberta and the Vogues of 1938 plus that Better Davies and William Powell film,"The fashions of 1934.It does have fantasy dancing sequences,since she was a dancer too,It seems in the beginning when she introduction the fashion of possibly 1950,possibly,she is wearing the same gown she wore in the 1940 version of Irene,but ,slightly alternate color.In the second dream sequence,she is dancing with a white gown with a bunch of male suite dancers,but, she changes to the same costume.Michael Wilding dances too in another day dream sequence ,when she is imagining him and her in a slow motion ball room type dancing ,as in reality ,she has decide to join Peter Graves in his fashion business ,but ,she is not sure about it.It's obviously in Britain Michale Wilding was a Matinée idol ,at the time.It's like the Roberta story.Poor Michael inherits a fashion shop from one of his late cousin.one of h his living cousins ,played by Nicholas Phipps,insist he ought to sell it.Michael falls for Anna and wants to continue the store.The next door neighbor fashion shop ,owned by Peter Graves,wants to put Anna's shop out of business.He persuades his female clientele by singing the English version of the Spanish song.", Amour ,with his piano.Later on he gets Michael's cousin drunk ,in the gentleman club.You see him at he police where Mike's cousin has been charge with disorderly conduct,but,You don't see Peter Graves at the police station as well.Should Peter have been arrested too?Drunk and disorderly in a bar?there's a joke in which the police sarcastically states Mikes cousin must be Michael Wilding fan.Darcy Davenport fails to shut Anna shop down.If this movie was remastered for digital it would be probably only sold in England ,unless the American company willing to pay the fee.Better than nothing .Great British entertainment. 05/6/17

Isn't anybody going to talk about the couturiers? I think I've read all of the user reviews and I find it peculiar that the one thing that this Roberta remake has that sets it apart from the others is that for some reason they have nine or 10 different dress designers including some of the most famous in Europe yet nobody mentions this. It seems to me there must have been a reason why that was done and I would love to know what that could possibly be. There are some very pretty clothes and some that show the worst excesses of the late 1940s but a comparable Hollywood movie such as the original Roberta in Hollywood seems to be able to manage with just Bernard Newman and his staff. And that movie features some beaded gowns that clearly involved hundreds of hours of work. I would just like to know why this movie has this embarrassment of riches because it doesn't seem to be unusually elaborate or excessive. Just saying.

Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding made 7 films together. At their best, they were paired in glossy, stylish musical comedies like MAYTIME IN MAYFAIR, which is a remake of ROBERTA. Here, Wilding plays a penniless charmer who inherits a dress shop. The shop is managed by stylish but aloof Anna Neagle. He knows nothing about clothes but is instantly smitten. Along for the ride is his friend (Nicholas Phipps) who gets drunks and divulges details of the fall collection to a rival (Peter Graves) who insists on singing all the time. After the papers break the news of the new fashions, Neagle takes off in a snit with Graves, leaving Wilding to fail and sell the business. Will things get straightened out? The film's highlights are two musical dream sequences. In one, Wilding imagines the beautiful Neagle as a famous model. In the other, Neagles imagines a slow-motion dance with Wilding. Bother are well done. There's also a big fashion show sequence with all the major London designers represented. Neagle and Wilding are a perfect team. Neagle has a regal beauty, a good sense of humor and a decent singing and dancing talent. Wilding has a goofy charm that goes well with Neagle's icy demeanor and also dances well. They were hugely popular with British audiences in the 40s and 50s. Phipps is fun as the dopey friend but was also an accomplished director and writer (he wrote the script for this film). Co-stars include Tom Walls as the inspector, Thora Hird as Janet, Mona Washbourne as Lady Levenson, and Colette Melville as Priscilla. Fun film. Listen closely to Wilding's jokey asides. Funny!

I agree with the general comments of all mentioned above, especially Marilyn Henry's witty remarks.Yes, Anna Neagle was too old for the leading lady part, most noticeable in her close-ups but remember her husband Herbert Wilcox was the producer.The "in" jokes are there again where the leading lady & man joke that their stage characters remind them of their real selves, (see "Spring in Park Lane" (1948) a companion to this film). On the plus side it is in glorious colour and the fact the plot is set in a late 1940s fashionable Mayfair lady's clothes salon gives the director an opportunity to show fashion models literally stepping out of the pages of contemporary fashion journals.That scene reminded me of "Cover Girl" (1945) with Rita Hayworth & Gene Kelly, when glamorous models likewise appear and step out of American fashion magazines.Nice to see a young Thora Hird playing a secretary and Tom Walls playing a policeman.Its a harmless bit of froth and in my opinion only worth 5/10.The actors in "Spring in Park Lane" were effectively reprising their roles, especially the slow motion dancing of Dame Anna with Michael Wilding Likewise Peter Graves and Michael Wilding's cousin "once removed" are reprising their almost identical role in "Spring in Park Lane".

No doubt Michael Wilding had his fans at the time (and even now) but for me he is trading on a charm doesn't in fact possess in this story. To be fair I am saying story rather than performance because the silliness really is at the story and script level, and Wilding is delivering what is required by both. By virtue of an unexpected inheritance he breaks in on the Neagle character's successful fashion business and he and his buddy set about spoiling it in small ways and then a large way. His behaviour is insensitive and irritating but clearly is intended to be accepted as whimsical and charming, and eventually irresistible to Neagle. A real person with self-respect would have socked him and walked off the job well before she does in this film. I was born the year after this film was made, and so I have had a good chance to observe how much attitudes to women have changed - or not changed as much as they should. I can see presented uncritically in this film some of the fundamental disrespect of women which is still so toxic to our culture today. In between repeatedly muttering "that ain't funny" I did enjoy some of the aspects of this film (eg the costumes). Neagle does a respectable job of her dancing although I take it the dancing in the major dance sequences is done by a lookalike double. In closeups she is heavily painted and clearly is no spring chicken. Yet her character is described as a "girl". She is a lovely, dignified and ladylike woman, and very credible as a successful businessperson, which many might think is better than being a girl.

I first saw this film over 25 years ago on British TV and have only just caught up with it again last week on a DVD copy bought off ebay. I had remembered the musical sequences, the colour and the gorgeous fashion plate poses and clothes but the plot is weaker than the earlier Anna Neagle/Michael Wilding film Spring in Park Lane and Maytime doesn't stand up so well to the passage of the years. But Michael Wilding is a joy in the film, charming, funny, debonair, appears to be having great fun and on top of his form. Worth watching for him alone. Anna Neagle appears a little matronly beside him, and a little too old for the part she plays but by the end of the 1940's their film partnership was well established with the cinema going public. Spring in Park Lane had been a top hit for 1947 and a big money maker. In his autobiography Wilding wrote at length of his great regard for Herbert Wilcox the director and instigator of this London series of films.

The plot of Roberta is an old chestnut by now...young man (comic, dancer, musician, goof ball, etc--depends on which version) finds he has inherited one half of a posh fashion salon. He and his buddy go to salon to check it out, with the intent of making money either from selling it or by a promotion of one kind or another. They meet the other half owner, a gorgeous young woman. This plot was done as movies and even a TV show starring Bob Hope. This version is one of my cherished British films, actually, because it stars Michael Wilding. Wilding was wildly popular in England, long before he met and married Liz Taylor. He was usually teamed with Anna Neagle and they made several of these entertaining and fun films with place titles: Spring in Park Lane, Maytime In Mayfair, The Courtneys of Curzon Street, Picadilly Incident (a friend and I used to enjoy making up new titles for these stars--A Cuddle in the Cotswalds, Manchester Meeting, Winter in Winchester, Kissing in Kensington, etc.) Neagle's husband produced most of Neagle's films and by teaming her with Wilding, had a good thing going for some time in the 1940s. Here Wilding is a broke aristocrat, a bit of a playboy, who intends to collect money from this inheritance, but is distracted from this when he meets the lovely co-owner, Neagle. The plot is entirely predictable, but enjoyable, all the same. He sets out to help make the salon a success so they can all make money. He and Neagle dance and romance (Wilding was marvelous at provocative little asides and quick quips), and there is a big fashion show as climax. I always felt this couple was sort of a heavy-footed version of Astaire-Rogers. They usually began with some sort of misunderstanding or she hates him immediately or identities were mistaken, or some such device, and then all that sexual tension until they dance and romance blooms. I recommend this--not because it is a particularly good movie (it isn't), but because of Wilding's charm and wit. I adored him in British movies, and was so disappointed in his American movie career. They hadn't a clue what to do with him in the US, and so his career declined and was basically over by the time Taylor divorced him. What a shame. He made one US film, directed by Hitchcock, which gave you a hint of the charmer he had been, Stage Fright, with Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich. As for Neagle, well she went on in such froth as this, long past her prime, but producer-husband Herbert Wilcox looked after her well, and she was a British favorite. She reacted well with Wilding, but I often found her bland.