Upstairs and Downstairs ***(1959, Michael Craig, Anne Heywood, Mylène Demongeot, James Robertson Justice, Sidney James, Daniel Massey, Claudia Cardinale, Joan Hickson, Joan Sims) – Classic Movie Review 7912

It is party time at the home of newly-weds Richard and Kate Barry (Michael Craig and Anne Heywood) in director Ralph Thomas’s 1959 comedy Upstairs and Downstairs, a late-Fifties British sitcom-type study of the perils and pitfalls of guests and servants gathering for a bit of a do.

James Robertson Justice is outstanding as Heywood’s crusty, domineering dad, who persuades the couple to hire a maid, and they take on the live-in sexy servant Ingrid (Mylène Demongeot).

Upstairs and Downstairs is a fitfully entertaining comedic study of party chaos, that looks like a Mike Leigh filmed play but lacks the bite. As so often, the comedy writing by Frank Harvey, based on novel by Ronald Scott Thorn, could be better, sharper and funnier. Still, it remains good hearted and amusing, with a very nice cast of British stalwarts (including Sidney James, Daniel Massey, Joan Hickson, Joan Sims, Nicholas Parsons, Madge Ryan, Betty Henderson, Barbara Steele, Shirley Anne Field, Susan Hampshire and Oliver Reed) as well as Claudia Cardinale to keep things going.

Shot in Eastmancolor by Ernest Steward, and made at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, it is a typical product of The Rank Organisation of the era.

Also in the cast are Joseph Tomelty, Nora Nicholson, Austin Wills, Margalo Gillmore, Reginald Beckwith, Cyril Chamberlain, Dilys Laye, Irene Handl, William Mervyn, Eric Pohlmann, Jean Cadell, Barbara Everest, Stephen Gregson, Nicholas Phipps, Jeremy Burnham, Nicholas Parsons, Madge Ryan, Betty Henderson, Barbara Steele, Shirley Anne Field, Susan Hampshire, Oliver Reed, Harry Locke and Bill Edwards.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7912

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