''Sailing Along'' is a 1938 British

musical Musical is the adjective of music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact def ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Sonnie Hale and starring

Jessie Matthews Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Ma ...

, Barry MacKay,

Jack Whiting John George Benjamin Whiting (19 February 1894 – 15 July 1975) was an English cricketer. Whiting's batting style is unknown, but he was a right-arm fast bowler. He was born in Stoke Goldington, Buckinghamshire. Whiting made his debut ...

Roland Young Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...

Frank Pettingell Frank Edmund George Pettingell (1 January 1891 – 17 February 1966) was an English actor. Pettingell was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, and educated at Manchester University. During the First World War he served with the King's Liverpool ...

Noel Madison Noel Madison (born Noel Nathaniel Moscovitch; April 30, 1897 – January 6, 1975) was an American character actor in the 1930s and 1940s and appeared in 75 films, often as a gangster. Born in New York City, Madison was the son of actor M ...

and

Alastair Sim Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE (9 October 1900 – 19 August 1976) was a Scottish character actor who began his theatrical career at the age of thirty and quickly became established as a popular West End performer, remaining so until his d ...

. It includes many staged song and dance routines either on barges or on the dock edge.

Premise

A rich owner of a fleet of three-masted barges operating on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

in central

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

has a prospective step-daughter, Kay (

). She falls in love with the son of one of his barge masters, who has been put to work on a barge at the bottom of the ladder. She initially wants to gives up her chance of stardom as a singer to be with him. Ultimately everyone supports her singing career.

Cast

as Kay Martin * Barry MacKay as Steve Barnes *

as Dicky Randall *

as Anthony Gulliver the rich father *

as Windy *

as Skipper Barnes *

as Sylvester the artist *

Athene Seyler Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 188912 September 1990) was an English actress. Early life She was born in Hackney, London; her German-born grandparents moved to the United Kingdom, where her grandfather Philip Seyler was a merchant in London. Ath ...

as Victoria Gulliver *

Margaret Vyner Margaret Leila Vyner, also known by her married name Margaret Williams (3 December 1914 in Armidale, New South Wales – 30 October 1993 in Reading, England) was an Australian-born model and actress who appeared in British films. She collaborat ...

as Stephanie * William Dewhurst as Winton * Peggy Novak as Jill * Patrick Barr as Seaman at Birthday Party * Arthur Denton as Man Auditioning Chorus Girls

Production

''Sailing Along'' was filmed at

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to ...

from August to December 1937, directed by Sonnie Hale. The screenplay was written by

Lesser Samuels Lesser, from Eliezer (, "Help/Court of my God"), is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adolf Lesser (1851–1926), German physician * Aleksander Lesser (1814–1884), Polish painter and art critic * Anton Lesser (born 1952), Br ...

and Sonnie Hale, based on a story by Selwyn Jepson. For the last big dance number—which lasted seven minutes on screen—the camera followed Whiting and Matthews for nearly a mile, and the set was so large that it had to be built across two studios. Including rehearsals, the pair danced an estimated twenty miles to complete that single scene.

Release

The film opened at the

Gaumont Haymarket The Odeon Haymarket was a cinema on Haymarket, London. Three cinemas occupied the site between 1925 and 1996, predecessors being Capitol Cinema (1925–1936) and Gaumont Haymarket (1937–1959). It became the Odeon Haymarket in 1962, before closin ...

on 17 April 1938, and was generally released on 29 August 1938.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review, ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...

'' wrote, "The best features of the film are the songs and the dances which are cleverly treated, particularly in the final sequence where Kay and Dicky perform a really original and brilliantly executed tap ballet. Jessie Matthews acts Kay with unrestrained gaiety and fire, sings adequately and dances superbly. Jack Whiting, as Dicky, matches her in dancing ability and outshines her in singing and acting, Barry Mackay tries hard not to make Steve too imbecile, while Roland Young (Gulliver) and Athene Seyler, as his prim sister, serve up a banquet of laughs from the few crumbs that fall their way." In his review for '' The Era'' on 27 January 1938, R.B. Marriott applauded Hale's direction as "swift, gay and witty", and added that "''Sailing Along'' was certainly the most polished romantic comedy with music ever made in our studios: and for vitality, deftness and general entertainment value it equals any, and is superior to, many that have come from that over-rated motion picture making town across the Atlantic Ocean."

References

External links

* * {{Sonnie Hale 1938 films British musical comedy films 1938 musical comedy films Films directed by Sonnie Hale Films shot at Pinewood Studios Films set in London British black-and-white films Gainsborough Pictures films 1930s English-language films 1930s British films