Britannia of Billingsgate

CinemaSerf

This is actually quite a cheery little feature that sees fish and chip shop owner "Bessie" (established theatre star Violet Loraine) aspire to become a film star. Fat chance thinks you! Well, as it happens she has a decent enough singing voice and when she is "discovered" by a local studio, her life with family "Bert" (Gordon Harker), "Pearl" (Kay Hammond) and "Fred" (John Mills) is suddenly all topsy-turvy. What makes this a little more memorable is that it demonstrates to an audience just how films were put together then - the filming, audio, lighting - and film was expensive stuff so much of this was live! Harker and Loraine have a conviviality to their characters that lends well to the gentle comedy very much of it's time: an amiable English combination of stoicism and opportunity - with a solid supporting cast. It has a charm to it this. That doesn't make it memorable or really even very good, but it had a job to do in 1930s Britain and I suspect it did it well enough to pack out the houses for eighty minutes on a Saturday afternoon.