British Stage & Screen

A history of British film and theatre, mostly pre 1960.

[margaretlockwood]

Margaret Lockwood with Norman Wisdom and Glynis Johns at the British Film Academy Awards, 1954

[razzleberryravyn]

Glynis Johns in Mad about Men (1954)

[deborahkerr]

Deborah Kerr and Glynis Johns in VACATION FROM MARRIAGE (1945) dir. Alexander Korda

[kenneth-williams-diaries]

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level. The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real.”

“I would sooner play in a good British picture than in the majority of American pictures I have seen.”

GLYNIS JOHNS

5 October 1923 - 4 January 2024

... may she rest in peace ✨️🕊

Photo: Glynis (as Marion Southey) with a young, ambitious Kenneth Williams (as Peter Wishart) in the adventure film "The Seekers" (UK/New Zealand), released in June 1954.

Ken's diary entry on 29 September 1953:

"Peter Eade rang to say I'd got the film part!!! Wishart!!! The leads are Jack Hawkins and Glynis Johns. It seems fantastic. But I know that it is part of the pattern. I am destined to be a good actor."

[onegentlemansescapades]

RIP to British actress Glynis Johns (October 5, 1923 – January 4, 2024).

[drkbogarde]

Dirk Bogarde in The Gentle Gunman (1952) dir. Basil Dearden

[ruthxgordon]

Ruthie photographed by Angus McBean in The Country Wife, 1936.

photo from my dear @margotfonteyns <33

[silverscreendames]

Deborah Kerr in Love on The Dole (1941) dir. John Baxter

[laurapetrie]

Jean Simmons at home, 1946

[margaretlockwood]

Margaret Lockwood and Glynis Johns with Walt Disney at the London premiere of Peter Pan, 1953. Both actresses had famously played Peter on the West End stage: Glynis in 1943 and Margaret in 1949 and 1950.

[britishstageandscreen]

Glynis Johns as Peter Pan at the Cambridge Theatre, 1943. Photo by Fred Daniels.

[divinevivienleigh]

“Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier are about to do one of the umpteen love scenes in Lady Hamilton. Olivier tickles Vivien’s wrist. She giggles. And cameraman Rudolph Maté shouts, ‘That’s right. Smile. I’m putting a special light on your smile.’ As though she needed it!” – Sheilah Graham

[margotfonteyns]

Merle Oberton taking dance lessons for her role as a ballerina in The Red Shoes, 1937

The first attempt to make a Technicolor ballet film with the title of The Red Shoes was by producer Alexander Korda and intended as a vehicle for his star (and soon-to-be wife) Merle Oberon. The production was soon cancelled but Korda never fully abandoned the project, hiring a succession of writers over the years to revive and re-fashion the script. One of these writers was Emeric Pressburger, who, in his own words, ‘was rather puzzled that [Korda] wanted Merle to be in the film’ and believed–incorrectly, as the photos above clearly show–that ‘she had [never] taken a single ballet lesson in her life’.

Pressburger’s interest in the story grew beyond his initial role as screenwriter, to the point that he and Michel Powell attempted as early as December 1941 to buy the film for their own production company (The Archers). The idea of featuring a professional dancer in the lead role still hadn’t occurred, and both Powell and Pressburger wanted Vivien Leigh for the role. Korda eventually gave up on the project after divorcing Oberon in 1945, and the rights to the property were sold to The Archers shortly afterwards–culminating in the version of The Red Shoes which is known and loved to this day.

[margotfonteyns]

Jean Simmons as Ophelia in Hamlet (1948)

[divinevivienleigh]

Vivien Leigh photographed by Wilfrid Newton for Caeser and Cleopatra (1945)

[margaretlockwood]

Costume design by Julie Harris for Margaret Lockwood as the Wicked Stepmother in The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

[margaretlockwood]

Margaret Lockwood in The Wicked Lady (1945)

This was one of several scenes ordered to be re-shot by Joe Breen who considered Margaret’s low-cut Restoration gowns to be too revealing for the sensibilities of American audiences. When told about the need for re-takes, Margaret quipped: “Where did he sit when he saw the picture–in the upper circle?”