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Shipyard Sally

Film still

Shipyard Sally - 1939 | 77 mins | Comedy, Musical | B&W

The Production Team

Director: Monty Banks.
Producer: Robert Kane.
Script: Don Ettlinger, Gracie Fields, Thomas J. Geraghty, Karl Tunberg and Val Valentine.
Cinematography: Otto Kanturek.
Original Music: Louis Levy.

The Cast

Gracie Fields - Sally Fitzgerald
Sydney Howard - Major Fitzgerald
Morton Selten - Lord Alfred Randall
Norma Varden - Lady Patricia Randall
Oliver Wakefield - Forsyth
Tucker McGuire - Linda Marsh

Plot Synopsis

Music hall queen Jessie Fields stars in her last British film as the eponymous heroine in this chirpy up-the-workers romp. Monty Banks, whom Fields would later marry, allows the action to unravel into slapstick at times. But depending on your tolerance for belting, blousy tunes, his lively morale-booster is surprisingly infectious at heart. One of the film's songs, "Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye," later became a firm favourite of troops during WWII.

A sassy saloon-bar singer (Fields) reluctantly travels from London to Glasgow to run a dockside pub her roguish father (Sydney Howard) has bought using her money. The pub is initially a great success, but when the Clydebank shipyard is closed down her regulars are forced into buying their beer with IOU’s. Sally becomes embroiled in the fight for the re-opening of the shipyard and travels to London to deliver a signed petition to Lord Randall (Morton Selton).