Miracle in Soho * (1957, John Gregson, Belinda Lee, Cyril Cusack) – Classic Movie Review 11,222

Director Julian Amyes’s 1957 Eastman Color romantic drama Miracle in Soho is set in a central London fictional Soho street called St Anthony’s Lane, where a team of road workers arrives to dig up the entire street, and focuses on a mundane love affair between a rough-and-ready English road digger, ladies’ man Michael Morgan (John Gregson), and a local Italian immigrant family barmaid, Julia Gozzi (Belinda Lee).

Though written and produced by Emeric Pressburger, this is an uninterestingly dated comedy-drama that fails to capture the essence of burgeoning Fifties Soho life, and is low on the needed pace, drive and charisma.

Even the presence of an exceptional cast including Cyril Cusack, Rosalie Crutchley, Ian Bannen, Billie Whitelaw and Frazer Hines can’t save it. Writer Pressburger misses the sure touch of director Michael Powell, his Archers production partner.

It was shot Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, rather than in the real Soho.

Pressburger’s source novel The Miracle of St Anthony’s Lane was originally written for Kurt Gerron to film in 1934. It was optioned to film at least four times, but it remained unmade, so the rights reverted to Pressburger (who said he could retire if he had a few more stories like that) till it was finally filmed as Miracle in Soho in 1957.

Ronnie Hilton sings ‘The Miracle’ (music by Brian Easdale, words by Jack Fishman).

Also in the cast are Peter Illing, Marie Burke, Brian Bedford, Barbara Archer, John Cairney, Lane Meddick, Julian Somers, Harry Brunning, Douglas Ives, George Cooper, Cyril Shaps, Richard Marner, Gordon Humphris, Betty Shale, Junia Crawford, Michael Collins, Wilfrid Lawson, Colin Douglas, George Eugeniou, Lucia Guillon, Fred Johnson, Freda Bamford, Paul Stassino, Lynn Tracey and Eileen Forbes.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,222

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