Kurt at 04:56, 14 February 2023

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	~~{{short description\|1950 film by Frank Launder}}~~
	~~{{EngvarB\|date=September 2013}}~~
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	{{Infobox film		{{Infobox film
	\| ~~name~~ = The Happiest Days of Your Life		\| image = The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950 film).jpg
	~~\| image = The_Happiest_Days_of_Your_Life_~~(~~1950_film~~).jpg
	\| image_size =		\| image_size =
	\| caption = Original trade ad poster		\| caption = Original trade ad poster

Kurt at 15:38, 23 October 2022

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← Older revision		Revision as of 10:38, 23 October 2022
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	{{short description\|1950 film by Frank Launder}}		{{short description\|1950 film by Frank Launder}}
	~~{{For\|the original stage play\|The Happiest Days of Your Life (play)}}~~
	{{EngvarB\|date=September 2013}}		{{EngvarB\|date=September 2013}}
	{{Use dmy dates\|date=September 2013}}		{{Use dmy dates\|date=September 2013}}
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	*[https://coverlyrics.com/happiest-year-song-lyrics-by-jaymes-young/ Jaymes Young – Happiest Year Song Lyrics] at [https://coverlyrics.com/ Cover Lyrics]		*[https://coverlyrics.com/happiest-year-song-lyrics-by-jaymes-young/ Jaymes Young – Happiest Year Song Lyrics] at [https://coverlyrics.com/ Cover Lyrics]

	~~{{Launder and Gilliat}}~~
	~~{{Alexander Korda}}~~

	{{DEFAULTSORT:Happiest Days Of Your Life, The}}		{{DEFAULTSORT:Happiest Days Of Your Life, The}}

Kurt: 1 revision imported

2022-08-19T20:27:56Z

1 revision imported

← Older revision	Revision as of 15:27, 19 August 2022
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en>Sc2353: removed Category:English-language films using HotCat

2022-08-03T20:35:19Z

removed Category:English-language films using HotCat

New page

{{short description|1950 film by Frank Launder}}
{{For|the original stage play|The Happiest Days of Your Life (play)}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2013}}
{{Infobox film
| name = The Happiest Days of Your Life
| image = The_Happiest_Days_of_Your_Life_(1950_film).jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Original trade ad poster
| director = [[Frank Launder]]
| writer = [[John Dighton]] Frank Launder
| producer = Frank Launder [[Sidney Gilliat]] [[Alexander Korda]] (uncredited)
| starring = [[Alastair Sim]] [[Margaret Rutherford]]
| cinematography = [[Stanley Pavey]]
| editing = [[Oswald Hafenrichter]]
| music = [[Mischa Spoliansky]]
| studio = [[London Films]] Individual Pictures
| distributor = [[British Lion Films]] {{small|(UK)}}
| released = {{Film date|df=y|1950|03|08|UK}}
| runtime = 81 minutes
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| budget =
| gross = £278,502 (UK)<ref>Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p492</ref>
}}
'''''The Happiest Days of Your Life''''' is a 1950 British [[Comedy films|comedy film]] directed by [[Frank Launder]], based on the 1947 [[The Happiest Days of Your Life (play)|play of the same name]] by [[John Dighton]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yyqc0Qa6b60C&q=the+happiest+days+of+your+life+literary+sources+in+film&pg=PA128|title=The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film|first=Alan|last=Goble|date=1 January 1999|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110951943|via=Google Books}}</ref> The two men also wrote the screenplay. It is one of a stable of classic British film comedies produced by [[Frank Launder]] and [[Sidney Gilliat]] for [[British Lion Film Corporation]]. The film was made on location in [[Liss (England)|Liss]] and at [[Riverside Studios]], London. In several respects, including some common casting, it was a precursor of the ''[[The Belles of St. Trinian's|St. Trinian's]]'' films of the 1950s and 1960s.<ref name=screenonline/>

==Plot==

Set during September 1949, confusion reigns when St Swithin's Girls' School is accidentally billeted at Nutbourne College: a boys' school. The two heads, Wetherby Pond ([[Alastair Sim]]) and Muriel Whitchurch ([[Margaret Rutherford]]), try to cope with the ensuing chaos, as the children and staff attempt to live in the newly cramped conditions (it being impossible to share dormitories or other facilities), and seek to prevent the children taking advantage of their new opportunities.

Additional humour is derived from the departure of the Nutbourne College domestic staff and their hurried (and not very effective) replacement with the St Swithin's School Home Economics class.

The main comedy is derived from the fact that the parents of the St Swithin's girls would consider it improper for their daughters to be exposed to the rough mix of boys in Pond's school, and from the consequent need to conceal the fact that the girls are now sharing a school that's full of boys. Pond is offended at the suggestion that his boys are not suitable company for the young ladies of St Swithin's, but he needs to appease Miss Whitchurch to salvage his chances of an appointment to a prestigious all-boys school for which he is in the running, and which depends on his ability to prevent his current post presenting the appearance of a beer garden.

Matters come to a head when a group of school governors, from the prestigious establishment to which Pond has applied to become the next headmaster, pay a visit at the same time as the parents of some of the St Swithin's girls. Frantic classroom changes are made, and hockey, lacrosse and rugby posts and nets are swapped about, as pupils and staff try to hide the unusual arrangement.

Two simultaneous tours of the school premises are arranged: one for the girls' parents, and a separate one for the governors, and never the twain must meet! The facade finally collapses when the parents become obsessed with seeing a girls' lacrosse match at the same time as one of the governors has been promised a rugby match.

The punchline is delivered – a clever swipe at post-war bureaucracy – when, weeks too late, a Ministry of Schools official arrives, to declare everything sorted out. "You're a co-educational school, I believe; well I've arranged for ''another'' co-educational school to replace St Swithin's next week... Oh, it appears they're ahead of schedule." At this point, several more coachloads of children and staff appear noisily, and utter chaos reigns.

Fade out on Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, quietly discussing in which remote and unattractive corner of the British Empire they might best try to pick up the pieces of their respective careers, with her mentioning having a brother who "[[Tanganyika groundnut scheme|grows groundnuts in Tanganyika]]."

==Cast==
* [[Alastair Sim]] as Wetherby Pond
* [[Margaret Rutherford]] as Miss Whitchurch
* [[Guy Middleton]] as Victor Hyde-Brown
* [[Joyce Grenfell]] as Miss Gossage
* [[Edward Rigby]] as Rainbow
* [[Muriel Aked]] as Miss Jezzard
* [[John Bentley (actor)|John Bentley]] as Richard Tassell
* [[Bernadette O'Farrell]] as Miss Harper
* [[Richard Wattis]] as Arnold Billings
* [[Gladys Henson]] as Mrs. Hampstead
* [[John Turnbull (actor)|John Turnbull]] as Conrad Matthews
* [[Percy Walsh]] as Monsieur Joue
* [[Arthur Howard]] as Anthony Ramsden
* [[Harold Goodwin (English actor)|Harold Goodwin]] as Edwin
* [[Laurence Naismith]] as Dr. Collet
* [[Stringer Davis]] as Rev. Rich
* [[Olwen Brookes]] as Mrs. Parry
* [[Russell Waters]] as Mr. West
* [[George Benson (actor)|George Benson]] as Mr. Tripp
* [[Angela Glynne]] as Barbara Colhoun
* [[Keith Faulkner]] as Unsworth
* [[George Cole (actor)|George Cole]] as Junior Assistant Caretaker at Ministry of Education (uncredited)

==Reception==
===Critical===
''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' noted an "Uninhibited and energetically handled farce...Occasionally slapdash, but frequently amusing";<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/media/mfb/1007216/index.html|title=Monthly Film Bulletin review|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}}</ref> and ''[[The New York Times]]'' called it "witty, warm, sometimes biting and wholly charming."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE7D8123EEF3BBC4052DFBF66838B649EDE|title=THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Happiest Days of Your Life,' Comedy Filmed in Britain, Opens at Little Carnegie- NYTimes.com|website=movies.nytimes.com}}</ref>

''[[BFI Screenonline]]'' states that Alastair Sim's portrayal of headmaster Wetherby Pond "is one of his greatest creations", but that both he and Margaret Rutherford were "decisively upstaged" by supporting actress Joyce Grenfell, as one of the teaching staff of St Swithin's.<ref name=screenonline>{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/487612/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Happiest Days of Your Life, The (1950)|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}}</ref>

===Box Office===
The film was successful on its release, being the fifth most popular film and the second-biggest money maker at the British box office for 1950.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26748158 |title=BOB HOPE BEST DRAW IN BRITISH THEATRES. |newspaper=[[The Mercury (Hobart)|The Mercury]] |location=Hobart, Tasmania |date=29 December 1950 |access-date=24 April 2012 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/Screen_Volume_32_Issue_3/page/n17|magazine=Screen|page=258|volume=32|issue=3|title=The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry|first=Janet|last=Thumim}}</ref> According to ''Kinematograph Weekly'' the 'biggest winners' at the box office in 1950 Britain were ''The Blue Lamp'', ''The Happiest Days of Your Life'', ''Annie Get Your Gun'', ''The Wooden Horse'', ''Treasure Island'' and ''Odette'', with "runners up" being ''Stage Fright'', ''White Heat'', ''They Were Not Divided'', ''Trio'', ''Morning Departure'', ''Destination Moon'', ''Sands of Iwo Jima'', ''Little Women'', ''The Forsythe Saga'', ''Father of the Bride'', ''Neptune's Daughter'', ''The Dancing Years'', ''The Red Light'', ''Rogues of Sherwood Forest'', ''Fancy Pants'', ''Copper Canyon'', ''State Secret'', ''The Cure for Love'', ''My Foolish Heart'', ''Stromboli'', ''Cheaper by the Dozen'', ''Pinky'', ''Three Came Home'', ''Broken Arrow'' and ''Black Rose''.<ref>{{cite book|page=233|title=Blackout : reinventing women for wartime British cinema|last=Lant|first= Antonia|year=1991 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

===Legacy===
''[[The Belles of St Trinian's]]'' (1954) is a similar comedy about a girls' school at which chaos reigned, which was also produced by Launder and Gilliat and featured several members of the cast of ''The Happiest Days of Your Life'', including [[Alastair Sim]], [[Joyce Grenfell]], [[George Cole (actor)|George Cole]], [[Richard Wattis]] and [[Guy Middleton]], with [[Ronald Searle]] providing the cartoons for the titles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/487587/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Belles of St Trinian's, The (1954)|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
*The Great British Films, pp 142–143, Jerry Vermilye, 1978, Citadel Press, {{ISBN|0-8065-0661-X}}

==External links==
*{{IMDb title|0042541}}
*{{Screenonline title|487612}}
*{{Amg movie|94275}}
*[https://coverlyrics.com/happiest-year-song-lyrics-by-jaymes-young/ Jaymes Young – Happiest Year Song Lyrics] at [https://coverlyrics.com/ Cover Lyrics]

{{Launder and Gilliat}}
{{Alexander Korda}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Happiest Days Of Your Life, The}}
[[Category:1950 films]]
[[Category:1950 comedy films]]
[[Category:British comedy films]]
[[Category:British films based on plays]]
[[Category:London Films films]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat]]
[[Category:Films directed by Frank Launder]]
[[Category:1950s high school films]]
[[Category:Boarding school films]]
[[Category:Films set in 1949]]
[[Category:British black-and-white films]]
[[Category:1950s English-language films]]

The Happiest Days of Your Life (film) - Revision history

Kurt at 04:56, 14 February 2023

Kurt at 15:38, 23 October 2022

Kurt: 1 revision imported

en>Sc2353: removed Category:English-language films using HotCat