I only watched this because it was Gracie Fields' very first film, with the song that was to become her "theme tune" - "Sally (Pride of Our Alley)", a song she said many, many years later, it was only in a recent performance she realised it was a song that should be sung by a man.

Bit clonky and amateurish, but then it was filmed in the early 1930s; but none the less it was a good story (written in part by dirty old man Miles Malleson) and it's stretching it a bit to call it a comedy - I would say it was more a musical, as "Sally" featured a few times (!) and Gracie did get to sing two or three other songs.

So, Gracie's love goes off to war (WWI), gets seriously injured and thinking he wouldn't make a good husband, gets a mate to tell Gracie he was actually killed, which leaves the way open for his mate and all and sundry to win her hand in marriage. The original injured love interest makes a remarkable recovery, and with limp finally goes back home to claim her hand, but things are put in his way, not least by a flighty piece of fluff who does her best to get him in bed and put him off Gracie, and vice-versa.

The girl sees the error of her ways and how she has done the dirty on Gracie, so makes amends and the happy couple are reunited.

5/10

https://www.comedy.co.uk/film/sally_in_our_alley/

Seriously? I thought that maybe se was gay.

Quote: Chappers @ 6th November 2023, 3:50 PM

Seriously? I thought that maybe se was gay.

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Not quite sure what you mean there - she could play a gay person in a film, couldn't she? Not that that would have happened in 1931, and in her private life she was married to three men, with no children from any of the marriages.

EDIT * Oh, just realised what you meant - owing to her singing a "male" song to a girl called Sally - like I say, there is no way that would happened in that period, in a film such as this one.

A lot of Gracie Fields's films were similar for me, in being quite loose, neither particularly strong in comedy or story. But that is what a lot of cinema was like in that period. They are still entertaining enough - even though some of the vocals now sound incredibly shrill in places!

Quote: Aaron @ 1st December 2023, 3:09 PM

.......................vocals now sound incredibly shrill in places!

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And Gracie was certainly shrill in her early years, but then so were a lot of female singers in musical films of that period, which I think goes with the clipped high pitched voice everyone seemed to be afflicted with. One wonders now if they had a competition to see who could sing the shrillest. (Is there such a word, or did I just make that up?) Well there is now................ 😁