WHEN THE QUIFF WAS KING

 

Front cover of my official VHS sell-thru videocassette of When The Quiff Was King (© Ashley Sidaway/Best of British Films and Television Ltd/M.C.E.G. Virgin Vision (U.K.) Ltd – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 26 September 2022, nursing a pounding headache that evening, I decided to relax by watching not a movie as such but instead a recently-purchased VHS sell-thru video compilation. Created by Ashley Sidaway, released in 1990 by M.C.E.G. Virgin Vision, and with a running time of 55 minutes, it was entitled When The Quiff Was King, which contains a diverse selection of no fewer than 26 song-featuring scenes from classic British rock'n'roll movie musicals from the late 1950s and the 1960s.

Some of these movies, such as various Cliff Richard ones like Summer Holiday and The Young Ones, are still famous today, whereas others like These Dangerous Years (starring Frankie Vaughan), Tommy the Toreador and It's All Happening (two longstanding favourites of mine, both starring Tommy Steele), and The Ghost Goes Gear (Spencer Davis Group), somewhat less so.

Yet all of them in my eyes – and ears – remain just as fantastic today as they were way back then, when they were the soundtrack to my youth. So I felt the years (not to mention my aches and pains!) slip away as I watched and listened to them, drifting back to the golden age of my childhood when I had my family around me, with so much of my life and theirs still to experience, and long before mobile phones and the internet (wonderful inventions though they are) had appeared on the scene.

Instead, there was music with melodies, foot-tapping rhythms, and lyrics that actually rhymed – remember them? And unforgettable performers like The Shadows, The Hollies, Billy Fury, Lulu, Dusty Springfield, Freddie & The Dreamers, Shane Fenton (who reinvented himself in the 1970s as Alvin Stardust), and Lonnie Donegan, not forgetting of course the various other artists already mentioned by me above. And as all of these, plus many more, are present on this superb video compilation, I was guaranteed a very enjoyable, nostalgic evening of superb sound and vision. Bliss!

Such a shame, therefore, that at least as far as I'm aware, this wonderful compilation has never been re-issued on DVD – but if like me you still own a VCR, and if again like me you hanker back to British rock'n'roll at its very best, be sure to look out for it online, as it quite often appears for sale at reasonable prices on various internet auction sites.

Meanwhile, however, you can get a free taster of what to expect by clicking here to view on YouTube a mini-compilation of excerpts from When The Quiff Was King.

Finally: to view a complete chronological 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, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Back cover of my When The Quiff Was King video, providing a complete listing of the 26 song-featuring clips contained on it – please click picture to enlarge it for reading purposes (© Ashley Sidaway/Best of British Films and Television Ltd/M.C.E.G. Virgin Vision (U.K.) Ltd – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

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!