72% (1) Head Over Heels in Love 84 min, [Musical] [Sonnie Hale] [12 Feb 1937]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 72%, External Reviews
Actors: Jessie Matthews, Louis Borel, Robert Flemyng, Whitney Bourne
Writer: Francis de Croisset (play), Marjorie Gaffney (scenario), Dwight Taylor (adaptation), Dwight Taylor (dialogue), Fred Thompson (adaptation)
External Links: IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Cafe entertainer has ambition, but teams with a disloyal partner, throwing her career and her love life into disarray.
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71% (1) The Good Companions 95 min, [Comedy, Musical, Romance] [Victor Saville] [05 Nov 1935]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Edmund Gwenn, Jessie Matthews, John Gielgud, Mary Glynne
Writer: Ian Dalrymple, Edward Knoblock (play), W.P. Lipscomb (scenario and additional dialogue), Angus MacPhail, J.B. Priestley (novel)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Musical taken from J.B. Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos.
Rotten Tomatoes: Based on a novel by J. B. Priestley, this British musical-comedy follows an unlikely trio as they try to revive the fortunes of a floundering touring theatrical troupe. Inigo Jolifant (John Gielgud) is a schoolteacher with a talent for songwriting, and Jess Oakroyd (Edmund Gwenn) is a man with theatrical ambitions who has just lot his job. Together, they persuade Miss Trant (Mary Glynne), an older single woman looking for adventure, to back them as they try to bring "The Dinky Do's" back into the spotlight. Susie Dean (Jessie Matthews) is a chorus girl who dreams of stardom, and when she's made the new leader of the show, it looks as if her dreams may finally become a reality. The Good Companions is buoyed by the superb singing and dancing talents of Matthews, who was considered one of the screen's greatest musical stars in England and Europe, though she inexplicably never achieved the same fame in the United States; Gielgud also got a rare opportunity to display his vocal abilities in this film. Keep your eyes peeled for Jack Hawkins and horror film great George Zucco, who both appear in supporting roles. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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71% (1) Gangway 90 min, [Musical] [Sonnie Hale] [20 Aug 1937]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Alastair Sim, Barry MacKay, Jessie Matthews, Nat Pendleton
Writer: Lesser Samuels, Dwight Taylor (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Newspaper reporter becomes involved with gang of crooks who take her for a tough American gangster.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this musical, a plucky London newspaper journalist boards a transatlantic ocean liner in hopes of interviewing a prominent Hollywood starlet. She is followed by a Scotland Yard inspector who is looking for the jewel thief he knows is on board. Unfortunately, the inspector doesn't know the actual identity of the thief and his prime suspect becomes the hapless reporter who also finds herself pursued by a determined gangster who has made the same assumption. Before the boat docks in New York, the reporter is kidnapped and forced to work for the gangster's boss. Fortunately, the inspector finally discovers the thief's true identity and brings her to justice. The plot is based on a Dwight Taylor story. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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69% (1) Friday the Thirteenth 89 min, [Comedy, Drama] [Victor Saville] [14 Dec 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Cyril Smith, Jessie Matthews, Muriel Aked, Sonnie Hale
Writer: Sidney Gilliat (story), G.H. Moresby-White (story and scenario), Emlyn Williams (dialogue)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: UK
Plot: It is pouring with rain at one minute to midnight on Friday the thirteenth, and the driver of a London bus is peering through his blurred windscreen as his vehicle sails down an empty road. Suddenly, lightning strikes, and a vast crane above topples into the path of the oncoming bus... Then Big Ben begins to wind backwards. Time recedes. And we discover the lives of all the passengers and the events that brought them to that late-night bus journey, from the con-man with a hundred-pound cheque to the businessman's distraught and elderly wife. Time flows on, inevitably, to the crash -- and past it, as some live and some die.
Rotten Tomatoes: Definitely no relation to the horror-film series of the same name, the British Friday the 13th is a variation of the "Bridge on the San Luis Rey" theme, set in motion by a London bus accident. Two passengers are killed and two injured in the crash, but the screenplay (co-written by Hitchcock-contributor Sidney Gilliat) keeps the audience in suspense as to the identities of the victims. In a series of flashbacks, the viewer is introduced to the passengers and the various trials and tribulations they were dealing with before the accident. The characters include a chorus girl en route to a date with a man she doesn't love; a henpecked husband whose wife was cheating on him; a blackmailer who'd been bleeding an unfortunate young man dry; a wise-guy crook who was about to be caught by a nasty detective; and so on. Extraordinarily well cast for a mid-1930s British film, Friday the 13th affords excellent acting opportunities for the likes of Jessie Mathews, Ursula Jeans, Frank Lawton, Ralph Richardson, Max Miller, O.B. Clarence and Emlyn Williams, among many many others. While American critics were impressed by the film, British reviewers were less kind, commenting that the constant switch from one character to another only results in confusion (PS: It doesn't). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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69% (1) Evergreen 94 min, [Comedy, Musical, Romance] [Victor Saville] [31 Dec 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Barry MacKay, Betty Balfour, Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale
Writer: Benn W. Levy (based on the stage play by), Emlyn Williams (adaptation), Marjorie Gaffney (scenario)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, has a guilty secret: She has a baby daughter, born out of wedlock. Harriet leaves her public and flees to South Africa to raise her daughter quietly. The years pass, and now her daughter, Harriet Hawkes, returns to London as a young show-biz hopeful. Tommy, a wily publicity man, knowing that young Harriet is a dead ringer for her famous mother, convinces a theater producer to star her in a new revue as none other than the original Harriet Green, miraculously untouched by old age. The ruse works too well: Now the public believes Harriet is a well-preserved 60-year-old and Tommy is her son. The deception is more than merely inconvenient, because now Harriet and Tommy have secretly fallen in love.
Rotten Tomatoes: The old Ben W. Levy war-horse play Evergreen proved to be an excellent film vehicle from British music-comedy star Jessie Matthews. Our heroine plays a popular music hall thrush of the early 1900s, whose impending marriage into nobility is destroyed by the arrival of her long-thought-dead lover. When the latter demands "hush money," Matthews disappears from public view, but not before leaving her infant daughter in the care of her maid. Flash-forward to 1924: the daughter, also played by Matthews, is seeking work as a chorus dancer. An old associate of Matthews' mother, amazed at the resemblance between the two women, decides to pass her off as her long-lost parent, making a big publicity fuss over her "ageless" beauty. The younger Matthews confesses the ruse when she falls in love with a man who claims to be the older Matthews' son. Are you following all this, or do you need a road map? Anyway, if you catch a complete print of Evergreen, you'll be able to enjoy five songs performed by Jessie Matthews, one of them by no less than Rodgers and Hart. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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67% (1) It's Love Again 83 min, [Comedy, Musical] [Victor Saville] [30 May 1936]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 67%, External Reviews
Actors: Ernest Milton, Jessie Matthews, Robert Young, Sonnie Hale
Writer: Marion Dix (scenario), Marion Dix (screenplay), Austin Melford (additional dialogue), Lesser Samuels (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Elaine Bradford is a young singer and dancer, looking for her big break. Peter Carlton is a gossip columnist facing a deadline and a blank page. So, Peter invents "Mrs. Smythe-Smythe", a mysterious Englishwoman who spends her days hunting tigers in India, jumping out of airplanes, and generally driving men mad with her beauty. Since no one in London has ever seen Mrs. Smythe-Smythe, Elaine decides to impersonate the lady, in hopes that the publicity will land her the big break she's been looking for.
Rotten Tomatoes: Robert Young decides to create a "scoop" by fabricating the impending arrival of a female big-game hunter named Mrs. Smythe-Smythe. Jessie Matthews decides to pose as the fictitious woman, the better to embarrass Young. The comic complications are obliged to share screen time with Matthews' inevitable songs, the best of which is the title tune. Not all of Jessie Matthews' films played as well in America as they did in Britain: It's Love Again is a delightful exception.
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65% (1) Climbing High 78 min, [Comedy] [Carol Reed] [01 Dec 1938]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 65%, External Reviews
Actors: Alastair Sim, Jessie Matthews, Michael Redgrave, Noel Madison
Writer: Marion Dix, Sonnie Hale (original screenplay), Lesser Samuels
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Wealthy Nicky finds himself engaged to gold-digger Lady Constance, but he really loves scatty model Diana. Complications, slapstick and mountaineering are the result.
Rotten Tomatoes: Diana obtains a job in a modeling agency. There she meets a wealthy young man, Nicky, who uses a pseudonym to obtain modeling work to be near her. Lady Constance, however, is a rival wishing to marry Nicky for his money. Diana's brother, a rather tough young man, is determined that Nicky will marry his sister. The trio set off on a climbing trip. Will all be resolved?
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