''Up Jumped a Swagman'' is a 1965 British
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
comedy film
The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...
directed by
Christopher Miles
Christopher Miles (19 April 1939 – 15 September 2023) was a British film director, producer and screenwriter.
Personal life
Christopher Miles was born in London, England, the eldest of four children to Clarice Remnant (‘Wren’), a councill ...
and starring
Frank Ifield,
Annette Andre
Annette Andre (born 24 June 1939) is an Australian actress best known for her work on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Early life and early career
The daughter of an upholsterer, Annette Andre was born in Drummoyne, Australia ...
,
Ronald Radd
Ronald Radd (22 January 1929 – 23 April 1976) was a British television actor. He originated the role of Hunter in the television thriller series '' Callan''. In 1971, he was nominated for a Tony Award for ''Abelard and Heloise''.
Early work ...
and
Suzy Kendall.
It was written by
Lewis Greifer and includes the songs "
Waltzing Matilda
"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".
The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing ...
" and "
I Remember You I Remember You may refer to:
Music Albums
* '' I Remember You...'', a 1980 album by Karin Krog, Warne Marsh and Red Mitchell
* ''I Remember You'' (Brian McKnight album), 1995
* ''I Remember You'' (Jo Stafford album), 2002
* ''I Remember You ...
".
Premise
An aspiring Australian singer moves to London in the hope of a big breakthrough. He chases after a popular model, not noticing the beautiful daughter of a pub owner who loves him. He also gets involved with a gang of thieves.
Cast
*
Frank Ifield as Dave Kelly
*
Annette Andre
Annette Andre (born 24 June 1939) is an Australian actress best known for her work on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Early life and early career
The daughter of an upholsterer, Annette Andre was born in Drummoyne, Australia ...
as Patsy
*
Ronald Radd
Ronald Radd (22 January 1929 – 23 April 1976) was a British television actor. He originated the role of Hunter in the television thriller series '' Callan''. In 1971, he was nominated for a Tony Award for ''Abelard and Heloise''.
Early work ...
as Harry King
*
Suzy Kendall as Melissa Smythe-Fury
*
Richard Wattis
Richard Cameron Wattis (25 February 1912 – 1 February 1975) was an English actor, co-starring in many popular British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s.
Early life
Richard Cameron Wattis was born on 25 February 1912 in Wednesbury, Staffords ...
as Lever, music publisher
*
Donal Donnelly as Bockeye
*
Bryan Mosley
Bryan Mosley (25 August 1931 – 9 February 1999) was a British actor, best known for his role as grocer Alf Roberts in the long-running ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street''.
Early life
Mosley was born in Leeds, an only child, to Agnes Basquil ...
as Jo-Jo
*
Martin Miller as Herman
* Harvey Spencer as Luigi
*
Carl Jaffe
Carl Jaffe (21 March 1902 – 12 April 1974) was a German actor. Jaffe trained on the stage in his native Hamburg, Kassel and Wiesbaden before moving to Berlin, where his career began to develop.
In 1933 Jaffe changed his stage name to Fran ...
as Analyst
*
Cyril Shaps
Cyril Leonard Shaps (13 October 1923 – 1 January 2003) was an English actor of radio, television and film, with a career spanning over seven decades.
Early radio
Shaps was born in the East End of London to Polish-Jewish parents; his father ...
as Phil Myers
*
Frank Cox as Wilkinson
*
Fred Cox
Fred William Cox (December 11, 1938 – November 20, 2019) was an American professional football player who was a placekicker for 15 seasons for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL). After playing college football for th ...
as Docherty
* Joan Geary as Mrs. Hawkes Fenhoulet
*
William Mervyn
William Mervyn Pickwoad (3 January 1912 – 6 August 1976) was an English actor best known for his portrayal of the bishop in the clerical comedy ''All Gas and Gaiters'', the old gentleman in ''The Railway Children'' and Inspector Charles Rose i ...
as Mr. Hawkes Fenhoulet
*
Gerald Harper
Gerald Harper (born 15 February 1929) is a retired English actor, best known for his work on television, having played the title roles in ''Adam Adamant Lives!'' (1966–67) and '' Hadleigh'' (1969–76). He then returned to his main love, the ...
as publicity Mman
* Gillian Bowden as dancer
Production
The film was made when Frank Ifield was at the height of his popularity, and attempts to reproduce the success of
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...
's musicals. Ifield's agent,
Leslie Grade
Leslie Grade (3 June 1916 – 15 October 1979), born Laszlo (or Lazarus) Winogradsky, was a British theatrical talent agent. In 1943, he co-founded the Grade Organisation (also known as Lew and Leslie Grade Ltd) with his elder brother, the impr ...
, suggested another one of his clients, Christopher Miles, as director. Miles was only 25 and had never made a feature film before. He said the script was to be written by the people who wrote Richard's musicals:
Unfortunately the two writers of the Cliff pictures were not then on speaking terms, so the two halves of a rather soggy script arrived separately in the post, and not surprisingly made no sense at all. So Leslie, not one to be beaten, got an old writer friend from ITV, Lewis Greifer, saying "He's the man, I know you'll get on well" which we did. However, thinking up a credible vehicle for Frank, amiable and charming as he was, proved to me that ultimately you cannot make a celluloid purse out of a sow's ear, even though Frank was gamely willing to send himself up. It was going to have to be a small budget, and to save money I was asked to use a new film saving invention as the dreaded 'Techniscope
Techniscope or 2-perf is a 35 mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1960. The Techniscope format uses a two film- perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame ...
' process. By only using two sprocket holes for each frame (instead of the standard four) a narrow negative was created, which had a sort of wide-screen look. However, in 1965 colour film stock was still rather grainy, which showed when the final picture was blown up for the large cinema screen.[''Up Jumped a Swagman'' Directors Notes](_blank)
at Chris Miles website accessed 8 September 2013
Miles also said the leading lady fell pregnant before shooting started; he replaced her with
Suzy Kendall (making her film debut).
The film was shot at MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
's London studios at Boreham Wood, with exteriors at Gravesend Docks, St. Paul's Cathedral, Hyde Park, the Albert Memorial and Elstree town.
Annette Andre
Annette Andre (born 24 June 1939) is an Australian actress best known for her work on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Early life and early career
The daughter of an upholsterer, Annette Andre was born in Drummoyne, Australia ...
, an Australian actress living in London, was cast in the female lead. She called it "A very strange film. Good cast. Frank was nice, I was just never a fan of his singing. But he was pleasant. I was young enough to have fun with it. At the time, it was good work and I was thrilled to be doing it. "
Miles later reflected:
It was a baptism of fire but it taught me a lot about making a feature. It taught me that you cannot make a celluloid purse out of a sow's ear. You must get the script right first... Bunuel made musicals at one time and he probably destroyed the negatives by now. Like me, he needed the money.
A script for a follow-up Ifield movie was prepared but never made.
Songs
Songs featured include:
*"Once A Jolly Swagman"
*"Look Don't Touch"
*"I Remember You I Remember You may refer to:
Music Albums
* '' I Remember You...'', a 1980 album by Karin Krog, Warne Marsh and Red Mitchell
* ''I Remember You'' (Brian McKnight album), 1995
* ''I Remember You'' (Jo Stafford album), 2002
* ''I Remember You ...
"
*"I've Got A Hole In My Pocket"
*"I'll Never Feel This Way Again"
*"Cry Wolf"
*"Wild Rover"
*"Make It Soon"
*"Botany Bay"
*"Lovin' On My Mind"
*"I Guess"
*"Waltzing Matilda
"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".
The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing ...
"
Reception
''The Monthly Film Bulletin
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' wrote: "Christopher Miles' first full-length feature is an odd mixture of bizarre fantasy and pop reality. Not that either fantasy or the pop world are anything new to Christopher Miles, as those who have seen his short ''Rhythm 'n Greens'' will know. In this case it is not The Shadows
The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters between 1958 and 1959) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the pre-Beatles era from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. They served as the bac ...
who act out the whimsical products of his imagination, but that yodelling ballad-singer from Australia, Frank Ifield. And though he's not an actor, Frank Ifield proves himself a likeable enough personality. But likeable personalities don't make good films, and it soon becomes all too apparent that both the director's ideas and the techniques he uses to express them are second-hand. For the film turns out to be not so much a vehicle for Frank Ifield as a hesitant attempt to prove that anything Richard Lester can do, Christopher Miles can do better. ...The trouble is that whereas Lester's visual jokes are usually unforced, exuberant and part-and-parcel of his style, Christopher Miles seems to have planned his visual surprises so carefully to achieve the maximum comic effect that the jokes, when they come, are thin and forced. ...This is not to say that Christopher Miles' direction doesn't have its moments. "You've got to have a sound," Richard Wattis tells Frank Ifield, and as he opens his mouth to demonstrate, a lion roars on the soundtrack. .... Ken Higgins' photography sometimes catches the right off-hand mood, and Donal Donnelly and Ronald Radd add a little sparkle to a generally lifeless screenplay. And all ends happily with a communal rendering of "Waltzing Matilda"."
Home media
It was released on DVD in 2014.
References
External links
*
''Up Jumped a Swagman''
at Christopher Miles' website
Behind-the-scenes look at making the film at British Pathe
{{Christopher Miles
1965 films
Films directed by Christopher Miles
British musical comedy films
1960s English-language films
1960s British films