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After the Ball (1957 film)

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1957 British film by Compton Bennett This article is about the 1957 film. For other uses (including other films with this title), see After the Ball (disambiguation).

After the Ball
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Directed byCompton Bennett
Written byPeter Blackmore
Hubert Gregg
Produced byPeter Rogers
StarringPat Kirkwood
Laurence Harvey
Jerry Stovin
CinematographyJack Asher
Edited byPeter Boita
Music byKen Jones (uncredited)
Eric Rogers (uncredited)
Production
company		Romulus Films
Distributed byIndependent Film Distributors
Release date
  • 13 August 1957 (1957-08-13)
Running time89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

After the Ball is a 1957 British biographical film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Pat Kirkwood, Laurence Harvey and Jerry Stovin. It was written by Peter Blackmore and Hubert Gregg. It portrays the life of the stage performer Vesta Tilley.

Cast

Production

It was made at Beaconsfield Studios with sets designed by the art director Norman G. Arnold.

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The problems of recreating on the screen the life of great artists is a constant one. On the one hand it is impossible to convey directly the quality of their artistic achievement; on the other hand it is difficult, without extravagant fictionalisation, to find much drama in a life so unsensational as that of Vesta Tilley (1864–1952). ...Pat Kirkwood performs Vesta Tilley's songs well and wears male costume with rare success; though she can hardly capture the quality Grein described: "Her face was like a city in illumination". Tame and artless though the film in general is, Pat Kirkwood's performance, the shameless sentimentality, the associations with the great music-hall days and above all, the marvellous old songs carry it along quite well."

Picturegoer wrote: "If Britain must make musicals I'll gladly settle for this kind of Edwardian froth. It's a sugary, sentimental story of music-hall star Vesta Tilley. Very English, very kindly and a little dull. But at least it's not an embarrassing attempt to imitate a Hollywood musical."

Picture Show wrote: "This is a delightfully romantic and colourful music hall film ... It is delightfully and imaginatively directed, convincingly set and is worth seeing."

TV Guide gave the film two out of four stars, and wrote, "(Pat) Kirkwood puts zest into the rousing music-hall numbers that made Tilley an enduring star, but the script trudges on and the wait between musical moments may not be worth the reward. It's incomprehensible how director Compton Bennett and writers Hubert Gregg and Peter Blackmore could have made such a yawn out of such a good true story."

References

  1. "After the Ball". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  2. "After The Ball (1957)". BFI. Archived from the original on 15 April 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
  3. "After the Ball (1953) - Compton Bennett - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie".
  4. "After the Ball". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 24 (276): 99. 1 January 1957 – via ProQuest.
  5. "After the Ball". Picturegoer. 34: 19. 3 August 1957 – via ProQuest.
  6. "After the Ball". Picture Show. 69 (1794): 10. 17 August 1957 – via ProQuest.
  7. "After The Ball". TV Guide. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016.

External links

The films of Compton Bennett
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