The Show Goes On *** (1937, Gracie Fields, Owen Nares) – Classic Movie Review 13,621

Gracie Fields stars in the 1937 semi-biographical British musical comedy film The Show Goes On as a mill worker thrust to fame and fortune by an ailing composer (Owen Nares).

Director Basil Dean’s 1937 semi-biographical British musical comedy film The Show Goes On stars Gracie Fields, Owen Nares, John Stuart, Edward Rigby and Amy Veness.

Gracie Fields appears as Sally Scowcroft in a thinly disguised version of her own story in this above-average vehicle, combining the musical with serious dramatic moments, about a mill girl who becomes a West End star.

Little-known silent film star Owen Nares, as Martin Fraser, the composer-impresario with TB who guides her to fame and fortune, is a character far removed from Fields’s real-life first husband, comedian and impresario Archie Pitt, and ironically it was this film’s story-writer/ producer-director Basil Dean who actually first realised her potential.

One splendid musical sequence when Fields sings to the boys on a troopship captures the Lancashire lass’s special appeal.

The performances of a pretty fair cast are quite good. Edward Rigby and Amy Veness are very entertaining as Sally’s Father and Mother. But it is Fields who has to keep the show on the road.

Novelty act: Olsen’s Sea Lions.

Cast: Gracie Fields, Owen Nares, John Stuart, Edward Rigby, Amy Veness, Arthur Sinclair, Horace Hodges, Cyril Ritchard, Frederick Leister, Patrick Barr, Queenie Leonard, Jack Hobbs, Dennis Arundell, Billy Merson, Nina Vanna, Tom Payne, Laurence Hanray [Lawrence Hanray], Aubrey Dexter, Elsie Wagstaffe, Sybil Grove, Florence Harwood, Margaret Lacy, Frank Atkinson, Warren Earl Fisk, Walter Fitzgerald, Mike Johnson, Andreas Malandrinos, Jack Vyvian.

Release: April 1937.

The Show Goes On is directed by Basil Dean, runs 93 minutes, is made by Associated Talking Pictures, is released by Associated British, is written by Austin Melford, Anthony Kimmins and E G Valentine, based on a story by Basil Dean, is shot in black and white by Jan Stallich, is produced by Basil Dean, and is scored by Ernest Irving.

Queen of Hearts is released on the four-disc, seven-film Gracie Fields collector’s edition DVD with Sally in Our Alley (1931), Looking on the Bright Side (1931), Sing As We Go (1934), Love, Life and Laughter (1934), Look Up and Laugh (1935) and The Show Goes On (1937).

In real life, actor-director Monty Banks met Gracie Fields in 1935 and directed her in four films, and they married in March 1940 after she divorced Archie Pitt in 1939.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,621

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