Pleasant, pretty, basically harmless, at this remove it’s a bit hard to account for the outsized commercial success and subsequent affection for this sweet-natured charmer about two couples (one married/one dating) taking part in the annual London-to-Brighton antique car rally (a real & continuing event, BTW), then betting £100 on a personal race back to the city that plays out like a tortoise & the hare fable. William Rose’s original screenplay, fun rather than funny, is careful not to push the foibles, breakdowns & squabbles too far; Christopher Challis’s lovely TechniColor lensing, an unusual luxury at the time for this type of film in the U.K.; and director Henry Cornelius (another exiled Jew from Max Reinhardt’s Berlin orb*) getting the most out of locations & cast. (With no process shooting on the road and a star-making turn from a piss-elegant Kay Kendall & trumpet). Exemplary. . . in hitting modest marks. What probably did the trick back in ‘53 was catching a beat on a new phase in post-war British recovery: an anti-austerity vibe, and coming out of a growing middle-class that suddenly had time, and just enough expendable income, to revel in a frivolous hobby like the pampered & polished sputtering beauties they transform from ‘flivers’ into beloved, four-wheel family members. Cheaper than the children they seem to substitute for in these motoring circles.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Dying young in 1958 with a mere five directing credits, Cornelius’s most interesting credit might be the British kitchen-sink drama, IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY/’47, which he produced & wrote, but didn’t direct.
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