Aunt Clara *** (1954, Ronald Shiner, Margaret Rutherford, A E Matthews, Fay Compton, Nigel Stock, Jill Bennett) – Classic Movie Review 9674

Director Anthony Kimmins’s 1954 Ealing Studios-style British comedy Aunt Clara stars Margaret Rutherford as the straight-laced old treasure Aunt Clara Hilton, who inherits a pub, five greyhounds and a brothel from her rich uncle.

She decides to clean up her inherited new places, but then she visits her crooked gambling den when it is being raided by the police.

At long last a star vehicle for Rutherford – and a pleasing one too – after supporting so many comics (even Norman Wisdom and Frankie Howerd) so nobly. Even so, there is Ronald Shiner top billed on the poster.

Performers like Ronald Shiner, A E Matthews, Fay Compton, Nigel Stock, Jill Bennett, Reginald Beckwith, Raymond Huntley, Eddie Byrne, Sidney James and Garry Marsh return the favour, by doing the same for her.

This meek and mild, though pleasant comedy has an innocuous, unsurprising screenplay by the writer Kenneth Horne (not the radio comedy performer Kenneth Horne), based on a novel by Noel Streatfeild, with not quite enough funny situations and gags. But it gets an enormous lift with such a delightful star performance and some scene-stealing walk-ons.

Also in the cast are Diana Beaumont, Ronald Ward, Gillian Lind, Eileen Way, Jessie Evans, Joss Ambler, George Benson, Stringer Davis (Rutherford’s husband as Dr Graham), Charles Lloyd Pack, Vivienne Martin, Prince Monolulu, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Fanny Rowe, Jean St Clair, and Tom Walls Jr.

Aunt Clara is directed by Anthony Kimmins, runs 84 minutes, is made by Colin Lesslie Productions and London Film Productions, is released by British Lion Film Corporation (1954) (UK), is written by Kenneth Horne, based on a novel by Noel Streatfeild, is shot in black and white by Cyril M Pennington-Richards and Denys N Coop (camera operator), is produced by Colin Lesslie and Anthony Kimmins, is scored by Benjamin Frankel, and is designed by Paul Sheriff.

Balham-born (when it was posh) Ms Rutherford supported Norman Wisdom in Trouble in Store (1953) and later again in Just My Luck (1957), and Frankie Howerd in The Runaway Bus (1954). She had to wait till Murder, She Said (1961) to become a bona fide star.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9674

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