Love's a Luxury (1952)

By CinemaSerf

I can't help thinking that this would have worked so very much better on stage. As it is presented here, though, it's all just a bit too muddled and tries to pack too much in. The story centres around the experiences of a visiting theatre producer and an actor who head to a country cottage for a bit of R&R. Upon arrival they are introduced to some of the locals and, of course, their best laid plans soon go awry - and at pretty break-neck speed, too. The snag here is that the jokes are all very predictable. It's not really fair to impose 2022 attitudes on 1950s humour, but for me the jokes took farce to a new level of crassness. Despite a familiar and competent cast - Michael Medwin and Derek Bond amongst them - the whole thing sort of creaks it's way along for far too long with characters that I found more annoying than amusing. It has a value, though, as an example of what made us laugh on stage or radio back then but I am afraid that this one just didn't transfer so well to the silver screen.