Marry Me! (alternative title: I Want to Get Married[3]) is a 1949 British comedy film directed by Terence Fisher, and starring Derek Bond, Susan Shaw, Patrick Holt, Carol Marsh and David Tomlinson.[4]
Marry Me! | |
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![]() Original British cinema poster | |
Directed by | Terence Fisher |
Written by | Lewis Gilbert Denis Waldock |
Produced by | Betty Box |
Starring | Derek Bond Susan Shaw |
Cinematography | Ray Elton |
Edited by | Gordon Pilkington |
Music by | Clifton Parker |
Production company | Gainsborough Pictures |
Distributed by | General Film Distributors (UK) |
Release date | 7 June 1949 |
Running time | 97 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £117,941[1][2] |
Box office | £63,000 (by 1953)[1] |
The film was formerly known as I Want to Get Married.[5]
David Haig (David Tomlinson) is a newspaper journalist who is instructed by his Editor to go under cover at a popular matchmaking service, as romance is one of the subjects he identifies as being of particular interest to the Gazette's readership.
The film covers several relationships between various couples, including a French woman running from her abusive boyfriend and seeking citizenship; a butler, his master and a schoolteacher; and an attractive girl in a restaurant who falls for a priest.
The film has elements of dark drama and self-pity which refer to lost love; but it is primarily a romantic comedy. The gentle romances are successful, even if they take a little "slapstick" to achieve.
All but three people redeem themselves, are redeemed, or reform; those exceptions being the hardened murderer; the smug 'Gentleman's Gentleman'; and the forlorn, melancholy Hostess, who resigns herself to despair.
Anthony Steel has a small role, in one of his first appearances on screen.[6]
The film was a box office flop, recording a loss of £67,600.[1] Bosley Crowther in The New York Times found the first third of the film "a delight to watch," but, despite convincing dialogue and an "excellent cast", "the film as a whole is a disappointingly contrived package job". Crowther thought that the best story, with Guy Middleton, "rates inclusion in one of the Somerset Maugham showcases", but he concluded that the writers "have blunted their ingenious stories with some melodramatic and whimsical resolutions. Terrence Fisher's direction is strictly assembly-line."[7]
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