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Monday, January 4, 2021

THE LADY IS A SQUARE

 
Publicity poster for The Lady is a Square (© Herbert Wilcox Productions/Embassy Pictures/Paramount Pictures/StudioCanal/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Associated British-Pathé/Loew's Inc – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

During December, I always watch more movies than any other time of the year, because this is the month that for me contains both the Christmas holiday period and my birthday, and last year was no exception. I've already reviewed here on Shuker In MovieLand some of my watched movies from December 2020, so here is another one, which I viewed on 28 December – The Lady is a Square.

 It was on the British retro-movies TV channel Talking Pictures that I watched a rare vintage British comedy musical that even I'd never heard of before, despite the fact that I very much like this specific movie subgenre. Directed by Herbert Wilcox, made in glorious b/w, and released in 1958, it was entitled The Lady is a Square, and featured an infectiously catchy title song that was also new to me.

The Lady is a Square stars the late great Frankie Vaughan as upcoming popular singer Johnny Burns (with Anthony Newley as his long-suffering agent Freddy), who takes a job as a butler in a swanky London town house owned by Mrs Frances Baring (played by Anna - later Dame Anna - Neagle in her very last film role), partly because he needs the money but mostly because he is extremely attracted to Mrs Baring's pretty daughter, Joanna (Janette Scott).

However, whereas Joanna secretly likes popular music, her mother despises it, being a resolute lover of classical music only. So Johnny has to keep his singer lifestyle and in turn his love for Joanna (which is mutual) hidden from Mrs Baring – especially as she is struggling financially and her one chance of making some money, by funding a series of what she hopes will prove to be very lucrative concerts featuring a renowned Russian conductor, is falling apart. Needless to say, the secrets all come tumbling out eventually, and Mrs Baring is further angered by the title and theme of Johnny's hit record, assuming (wrongly) that 'The Lady is a Square' is a direct, denigrating reference to her.

But this movie is a musical, and a light-hearted comedy musical at that, so naturally it all works out well in the end. Moreover, in the closing scene Mrs Baring even reveals that she is something of a groovy hip-chick herself!

If I'm honest, I'd never realised just how good a singer Frankie Vaughan was. I'd hitherto known him only from his 1961 UK #1 single 'Tower of Strength', which, imho, is hideous - a kind of semi-yodelling horror that sets my teeth on edge whenever I hear it (yodelling singing should be left strictly to Frank Ifield and Slim Whitman). But in this movie, his vocal performances are extraordinary, and not just limited to pop songs either – his version of Handel's majestic aria 'Ombri Ma Fu' (backed by the National Youth Orchestra) near the end of the movie is superb.

The Lady is a Square also features some famous British actors in supporting roles These include Wilfred Hyde-White (best known as Colonel Pickering in the movie version of the smash-hit stage musical My Fair Lady); John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Wilson in the long-running UK TV show Dad's Army as well as countless other British TV and movie roles); and Kenneth Cope (forever remembered as murdered private detective Marty Hopkirk's white-suited ghost in the cult British supernatural TV cop show Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), which originally ran from 1969 to 1970, and was retitled as My Partner the Ghost when screened in the States).

If you'd like to see the swinging finale from The Lady is a Square when Anna Neagle's elegant Mrs Baring finally gives in to her long-suppressed inner rhythm alongside a very young Anthony Newley's bespectacled Freddy (plus music by Newley, although this song doesn't actually appear in the movie), please click here; and click here to listen to Frankie Vaughan singing the movie's extremely catchy title song.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

 

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