High society in 1930s/40s Brit films

[Brief Encounter]

After watching A Girl Must Live, it made me wonder if the Bright Young Things of the day were depicted much in contemporary films, particularly their lifestyles. The party scenes in AGML seemed to lean towards it. The Mitford Girls were in the press all the time in the 1930s but were there ever any characters like them in films?

From what I've seen, despite the way they spoke and the settings etc, the Brit films of the period tended to put the leading characters in 'ordinary' situations (ie. romantic entanglements). For instance, in the Jessie Matthews films I've seen, she often has to struggle somehow, usually aiming to achieve something. I guess this was so that working-class audiences could identify with her, and thus maximise box office takings.

Margaret Lockwood generally played 'ordinary' girls too, despite the fact she clearly was nothing of the sort! Ditto Phyllis Calvert, who sounded posher than The Queen. Contemporary films tended to show them as 'middle-class' I find.

The other popular Brit stars of the 30s were George Formby and Gracie Fields!

Part of the problem may have been that the 'Bright Young People' were pretty selfish characters, so difficult for audiences to empathise with. And their lifestyles were so remote from most of the audience too. Evelyn Waugh's novels were published in the 1930s, but I don't think any were adapted for film were they? Most of Nancy Mitford's books based on her class/family only came out in the post-war period.

[Steve Crook]

Many actors and actresses at that time were born with a normal regional accent but had that trained out of them and they were taught to speak as they did. Even people playing working class characters often sounded quite posh

There were exceptions like Gracie Fields and George Formby, but these were usually comic characters.

You say that they sounded posher than the Queen. They sound posher than the Queen sounds now - but back then she (and her parents) sounded very different.

Steve

[CaptainWaggett]

After watching A Girl Must Live, it made me wonder if the Bright Young Things of the day were depicted much in contemporary films, particularly their lifestyles. The party scenes in AGML seemed to lean towards it. The Mitford Girls were in the press all the time in the 1930s but were there ever any characters like them in films?

From what I've seen, despite the way they spoke and the settings etc, the Brit films of the period tended to put the leading characters in 'ordinary' situations (ie. romantic entanglements). For instance, in the Jessie Matthews films I've seen, she often has to struggle somehow, usually aiming to achieve something. I guess this was so that working-class audiences could identify with her, and thus maximise box office takings.

Margaret Lockwood generally played 'ordinary' girls too, despite the fact she clearly was nothing of the sort! Ditto Phyllis Calvert, who sounded posher than The Queen. Contemporary films tended to show them as 'middle-class' I find.

The other popular Brit stars of the 30s were George Formby and Gracie Fields!

Part of the problem may have been that the 'Bright Young People' were pretty selfish characters, so difficult for audiences to empathise with. And their lifestyles were so remote from most of the audience too. Evelyn Waugh's novels were published in the 1930s, but I don't think any were adapted for film were they? Most of Nancy Mitford's books based on her class/family only came out in the post-war period.

I don't remember any Bright Young Things in A Girl Must Live - they're all chorus artistes and furriers! Margaret Lockwood came from a fairly ordinary suburban South London background - she wasn't particularly posh. I don't think the Mitfords were in the press quite as much as their autobiographies would have you believe. Diana having a messy divorce and marrying Mosley would have been fairly newsworthy, briefly, as would Jessica heading off for Spain (but the British film industry more or less ignored the Spanish Civil War) but they didn't really do much partying.

It's rather surprising that the British film studios ignored Wodehouse though (except for the musical adaptation of Leave it to Psmith).

[will.15]

What about Merle Oberon in The Divorce of Lady X?

[Brief Encounter]

I don't remember any Bright Young Things in A Girl Must Live - they're all chorus artistes and furriers! Margaret Lockwood came from a fairly ordinary suburban South London background - she wasn't particularly posh. I don't think the Mitfords were in the press quite as much as their autobiographies would have you believe. Diana having a messy divorce and marrying Mosley would have been fairly newsworthy, briefly, as would Jessica heading off for Spain (but the British film industry more or less ignored the Spanish Civil War) but they didn't really do much partying.

It's rather surprising that the British film studios ignored Wodehouse though (except for the musical adaptation of Leave it to Psmith).

Not necessarily the characters in AGML, but the atmosphere at the party. It just occurred to me that I don't think I've seen anything from that period that does show that kind of 'lifestyle'. You're right about Margaret Lockwood, but by today's standards, she's very well-spoken.

Maybe the Mitfords didn't party all the time, but they did go to Debs balls and things like that. Were the upper-middle class (as they were) seen on screen?

[Steve Crook]

Were the upper-middle class (as they were) seen on screen?

Check out Mrs. Miniver

Steve

[CaptainWaggett]

Check out Mrs. Miniver

Steve

The Minivers might be your actual upper class - in the original newspaper column, the son is at Eton and they go to country house parties with hunting. and balls and stuff

There are some members of the upper classes in The Gentle Sex (Joan Greenwood and Joyce Howard) and Millions Like Us (Anne Crawford). And Anna Neagle certainly got posh in her 1940s films. As for Margaret Lockwood, I don't remember her ever playing a toff - in The Lady Vanishes for example, she's definitely 'new money'.

There are quite a few films set at posh country houses - The Case of the Frightened Lady for example. But there aren't so many town-y films about posh folk. Perhaps they're just not very interesting?

[Steve Crook]

The Minivers might be your actual upper class - in the original newspaper column, the son is at Eton and they go to country house parties with hunting. and balls and stuff

But Mr Miniver is "in trade" - he's an architect. So they're not really upper class
However they do have a maid so I reckon that makes them upper-middle

Isn't it a good job we don't bother with that nonsense any more. It was all so complicated

Steve

[CaptainWaggett]

But Mr Miniver is "in trade" - he's an architect. So they're not really upper class
However they do have a maid so I reckon that makes them upper-middle

Isn't it a good job we don't bother with that nonsense any more. It was all so complicated

Steve

Even This Happy Breed had a maid though and they were really quite common . Yes, isn't it a good thing people are no longer disadvantaged in any way because of their background?

[Brief Encounter]

Even This Happy Breed had a maid though and they were really quite common . Yes, isn't it a good thing people are no longer disadvantaged in any way because of their background?

LOL Enough said...

I need to see 'Mrs Miniver'! I think you're right about Margaret Lockwood: although in The Lady Vanishes, Iris and her friends do come across as slightly spoiled girls who just want to have a good time. Perhaps revealing how lazy and selfish the upper's could be just wasn't cricket

Of course, the (contemporary) Royals were never portrayed at the time either. Victoria was long dead by the time Anna played her. Wallis and Edward's activities would never have been shown. And as for what Hutch got up to - ye gads!

[CaptainWaggett]

LOL Enough said...

I need to see 'Mrs Miniver'! I think you're right about Margaret Lockwood: although in The Lady Vanishes, Iris and her friends do come across as slightly spoiled girls who just want to have a good time. Perhaps revealing how lazy and selfish the upper's could be just wasn't cricket

Lockers' family are definitely 'trade' in The Lady Vanishes though - that's why she's engaged to the blue-blooded cheque chaser. Baz and Mary Clare in Young and Innocent seem genuinely posh though - there's a chauffeur and a butler and they seem a bit embarassed about the policeman brother-in-law, not inviting any of his children to the party (or am I not meant to point out ginormous plot-holes in Hitchcock films? )

[Brief Encounter]

I always thought he was a blue-blooded Czech chaser

[wadey]

I know what you mean and I think we tend to get glimpses of them in cocktail bars and nightclubs

[Elaine]

I think in the thirties and forties the people who made the films of the day, where middle class. I don't imagine Lord so and so, being a director or producer. They still had the idea that anyone not in their set, were the hoipolloi. Hence, ordinary people got a good start in the film industry well before the real toffs realised it was a repectable, and profitable business to be in.

[CaptainWaggett]

I think in the thirties and forties the people who made the films of the day, where middle class. I don't imagine Lord so and so, being a director or producer. They still had the idea that anyone not in their set, were the hoipolloi. Hence, ordinary people got a good start in the film industry well before the real toffs realised it was a repectable, and profitable business to be in.

Good point. Though you can't get more of a toff than Asquith despite his lack of title. However he seemed to move happily in all sections of society from lorry drivers to princesses (his sister married a Romanian prince)

[Elaine]

Well most of the actors and actresss then had crystal cut accents, that is apart from Gracie Fields and a few others. But then she didn't usually play serious parts. Were did those clipped vowels go? We don't get them in films today, unless it is a period movie.

[Brief Encounter]

Most big-budget British films do still predominantly feature well-spoken actors like Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren, so it hasn't entirely gone away. The New Wave films of the early 60s, many set 'up north' began to make cut-glass accents unfashionable. (I think.)

[Moor Larkin]

After watching A Girl Must Live, it made me wonder if the Bright Young Things of the day were depicted much in contemporary films, particularly their lifestyles. .................... The Mitford Girls were in the press all the time in the 1930s but were there ever any characters like them in films?

From what I've seen, despite the way they spoke and the settings etc, the Brit films of the period tended to put the leading characters in 'ordinary' situations (ie. romantic entanglements).

To what extent were British films just seeking a commercial niche I wonder. Hollywood had the stranglehold on glamour perhaps, with all those Busby Berkely etc. extravaganzas.

Plus, given the bleak times of the Thirties and then the war years and austerity, it's difficult to see that Lord Rank would imagine his audiences at the local Odeons or Gaumonts would want to pay money to watch the rich pigs swilling in their country troughs... Rich Americans were more aspirational maybe.

British escapism perhaps relied more on Elizabethan past glories (although again Hollywood seemd to do that better too) leaving maybe adventures of the empire, in places like India and Africa. I recall the otherwise down-to-earth and very popular Belinda Lee of the mid-Fifties speaking with a very finely tutored voice indeed when she was in Africa in "Nor the Moon by Night".

[Bernardo]

The class barrier film that ends all is one that one of you will have to put a name to: The plot is a doss house is to be closed and a bright young thing about to take ove a family business becomes involved in saving it which requires him to pretend with his best friend, another toff, to be a tramp and also play street cricket. In this film, which I have somewhere and would locate it if only I could remember the title, has just about every stereotype of this genre featured. Flat caps, white scarves 'n all guv.

[Nick Dando]

That'll be The Common Touch from 1941 - a lot later than I was thinking of as it has a late 1930s feel, rather than a war-time film.

The Common Touch (1941) - IMDb

Nick