Talk About Jacqueline ** (1942, Hugh Williams, Carla Lehmann, Joyce Howard, Roland Culver, John Warwick, Mary Jerrold, Guy Middleton, Katie Johnson, Martita Hunt, Max Adrian, Ian Fleming) – Classic Movie Review 13,734

The 1942 British comedy film Talk About Jacqueline stars Carla Lehmann as a notorious Englishwoman who tries to conceal her past from her new husband (Hugh Williams).

Director Harold French’s 1942 British vintage romcom film Talk About Jacqueline stars the very welcome ensemble cast of Hugh Williams, Carla Lehmann, Joyce Howard, Roland Culver, John Warwick, Mary Jerrold, Guy Middleton, Katie Johnson, Martita Hunt, Max Adrian, and Ian Fleming,

But it is a remarkably insubstantial British comedy about infamous Englishwoman Jacqueline (Carla Lehmann), who meets and weds Doctor Michael Thomas (Hugh Williams) on the French Riviera. When her shady past is dug up by a reporter, her close younger sister June (Joyce Howard) pretends that she is the mischievous lady, wrecking her own love affair.

Everyone in the very good cast works extremely hard, but the laughs barely get going, despite all the able, talented actors and the intriguing premise, though, to be fair, Carla Lehmann is delightful in a rather wayward, tricky character to play. Plus, we have enjoyable Mary Jerrold as Aunt Hellen, Katie Johnson as housekeeper Ethel and Martita Hunt as the Colonel’s wife to savour. Hugh Williams has far less success in an even trickier role to play, a shy, retiring young researcher from the Far East.

The screenplay by Roland Pertwee is based on a 1926 novel by German-American novelist Katrin Holland, aka Martha Albrand (1914–1981), born Heidi Huberta Freybe Loewengard. The novel had previously been filmed in Germany in 1937 as Man spricht über Jacqueline.

Talk About Jacqueline is directed by Harold French and Paul L Stein, runs 85 minutes, is made by Excelsior Productions (Marcel Hellman Productions), is released by MGM (UK and US), is written by Roland Pertwee and Marjorie Deans, is shot in black and white by Bernard Knowles and Cyril J Knowles, is produced by Marcel Hellman, is scored by Mischa Spoliansky (music), and is designed by Carmen Dillon.

Release date: 30 November 1942 (UK).

Cast: Hugh Williams, Carla Lehmann, Joyce Howard, Roland Culver, John Warwick, Mary Jerrold, Guy Middleton, Katie Johnson, Martita Hunt, Max Adrian, Ian Fleming, Joan Kemp-Welsh, Beatrice Varley, the screenwriter Roland Pertwee as Doctor in Hospital, Anthony Holles, Eileen Peel, Percy Walsh, Gerhardt Kempinski, Geoffrey Sumner, Joan Hopkins, Allan Jeayes, Robert Brooks Turner.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,734

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