Things Are Looking Up

A typically nice Cicely Courtneidge film - exuberance and nonsense in varying amounts, amusing and irritating in turn. It was a single song musical - but what a song, one of Noel Gay's finest tunes!

Cicely plays identical twin sisters, the prim one is a girls school mistress, the lively one a circus proprietor - the lively one steps into the breach when the prim one debunks with her lover for Africa. It's occasionally very funny but also very dull at times, with long stretches of childish slapstick. However my favourite bit is the "composing" of the song Things Are Looking Up by Cicely and Bill Gargan which I've seen so often over the years it's now part of me, classic and catchy corn indeed. On a side note the great Max Miller had a few snappy lines but was sadly underused.

I've always enjoyed Cicely's films and music - her careless vitality still appeals to me in today's more colourful and wiser world, this world where imposters can't thrive at girls schools, circus animals are banned, and people spreading positive messages and harmlessness are derided.