Say Hello to Yesterday * (1971, Jean Simmons, Leonard Whiting, Evelyn Laye) – Classic Movie Review 10,843

Director Alvin Rakoff’s 1971 British romance Say Hello to Yesterday stars Leonard Whiting, the former Romeo in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, as a pretty but thoroughly unpleasant young seducer pursuing an affluent, middle-aged housewife (Jean Simmons) who is in a failing marriage.

This may be a rather dispiriting, smug and poorly written and made romancer but the amiable stars try very hard and make some headway, and there is a nice little part for Evelyn Laye as Simmons’s mum, plus the attractions of the usual stalwart British support of the era.

However, Riz Ortolani’s score and Geoffrey Unsworth’s Eastmancolor cinematography are distinguished and add touches of class notably missing elsewhere.

Also in the cast are John Lee, Jack Woolgar, Geoffrey Bayldon, Frank Middlemass, Constance Chapman, Gwen Nelson, Nora Nicholson, Ronald Lacey, Derek Francis, James Cossins, and Edward Atienza.

The screenplay writers are Alvin Rakoff and Peter King, based on an original story by Alvin Rakoff and Ray Mathew.

It was released by Odeon Entertainment in 2012 in the UK on DVD.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,843

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Romeo, Romeo: Leonard Whiting stars in Say Hello to Yesterday (1971).