Wee Sonny MacGregor

Does anyone know anything about this film? At the time it was being filmed it was reported that the director was Ian Dalrymple yet IMDB has him as the producer and Derek Twist as the director. Some sources say that Dalrymple and Twist are one and the same but IMDB has separate details for each of them. This film, which came out in the late 40s, is not listed in the Britmovie database. I'ver never seen this film but my interest stems from the fact that scenes were filmed local to me.

Rob Compton

Hi WSM!

I am also very interested in this film, which I've been trying to get a copy of for years. It was filmed around Lyme Regis, which I assume is local to you. Bearing in mind the tourist trade, I'm sure that a smallish DVD release, suitably marketed, would do well - but I have never yet met anyone who has access to a copy, except (I think) the BFI - anyone able to apply any gentle pressure there?

I would be really interested in getting hold of a copy, if anyone could oblige - its never had a video or DVD release, as far as I know.

rgds
Rob

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Hi Rob,

Never seen this film and I can't recall it ever turning up on TV. I don't know about Lyme Regis but a newspaper report of 24 September 1948 said they were filming scenes at the Bowling Green in Chesham. As the film seems to have been made at Pinewood, which is not too far away, this would make some sense. The report said the director was Ian Dalrymple, no mention of Derek Twist. This film has to be lurking somewhere!

Sonny

Rob Compton

Sonny

I've referred to Bryan Forbes autobiography "Notes for a life" and he describes his involvement in the film, for which he was paid the then princely sum of £700. He says the location work was at Lyme Regis, with interiors as you say at Pinewood. No doubt they needed some extra scenes and rather than take the unit back to Lyme, made do with the local Chesham.

Re Derek Twist: he definitely directed the film (Bryan says Derek "allowed me to overdo the charm - I appear to have cultivated a very coy hair style and I undoubtedly wore too much make up"). Ian Dalrymple was the producer - a different chap to Derek Twist!

By the by, Forbes' book is really recommended - he doesn't take himself too seriously and it is very funny in parts.

(FAO Steve Crook) Bryan describes his experience with a certain Michael Powell who cast him as "dying soldier" in "The Small Back Room" - they had trouble making Forbes look sufficiently "dying" and after various suggestions from the crew, MP suggested bandaging him like a poor man's Invisible Man, and a very funny sequence in the book describes working practices in the British film industry with MP demanding that a load of leaves around the dying soldier be swept up: "can't do that guv, it's a gardeners job"

MP: "Well get a bloody gardener then"
Prop Man: "I have to inform you, there is no gardener in the studio"
MP "What does that mean?"
Props "It means, guv, that there ain't no gardener"

etc etc. Er..........I seem to have strayed away from "All over the Town" :rolleyes:

Anyway, get the book and read the rest of it - it's a good story!

rgds
Rob

Steve Crook

I'll have to. It's a nicely done little cameo in the film. He has about 4 or 5 minutes on screen to gasp his dying words.

It would have been filmed in the studio of course but the tent they're in is meant to be in Bala, N. Wales. David Farrar has just struggled across some Welsh landscape with his tin foot. Hence the leaves.

Steve

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Rob,

Thanks. I've got Forbesy's second volume of autobiography but not the first. I looked it up at the library at lunchtime- very entertaining, I'll have to get myself a copy. Can't think how I've missed this book.

Sonny

Jones

Hi Rob,

Really It's very nice to read. I never forget it in my life.

Thanks a lot to give that.

:) :)

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