Lassie from Lancashire

Marjorie Browne is the LASSIE FROM LANCASHIRE. With her father, Mark Daly, she shows up on the Isle of Man to stay at her aunt's boarding house, while the two of them look for something to turn up. Soon enough, she hooks up with Hal Thompson, an aspiring singer-songwriter and, in short order, they conquer the amateur show at Pierrotland and are taken on. However, her aunt, played by Elsie Wagstaff, is opposed to her niece going on the stage.

It's a modest but nice little musical of the diagetic variety -- all the musical numbers take place in "real life" and some of the numbers are very good. Neither of the leads got much of a movie career out of it, but there is some real talent lurking about; it's the first movie appearance of Leslie Phillips. The original songs are all right and there is a fine trio singing "There Is a Tavern in the Town" to cheer up those who like old numbers.

It's directed by John Paddy Carstairs, a good if not particularly distinguished director who took his movies and always made them watchable. His biggest hit was made fifteen years after this, when he directed Norman Wisdom in TROUBLE IN STORE.