''Dance Hall'' is a 1950 British

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Charles Crichton Charles Ainslie Crichton (6 August 1910 – 14 September 1999) was an English film director and editor. Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, he became best known for directing many comedies produced at Ealing Studios and had a 40-year career ...

. The film was an unusual departure for

Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...

at the time, as it tells the story about four women and their romantic encounters from a female perspective.BFI Screenonline, Roger Philip Mellor: ''Dance Hall (1950)''
Linked 2015-06-01

Plot

The storyline centres on four young female factory workers who escape the monotony of their jobs by spending their evenings at the Chiswick Palais, the local dance hall, where they have various problems with their boyfriends.

Main cast

Donald Houston Donald Daniel Houston (6 November 1923 – 13 October 1991) was a Welsh actor whose first two films—'' The Blue Lagoon'' (1949) with Jean Simmons, and ''A Run for Your Money'' (1949) with Alec Guinness—were highly successful. Later in ...

as Phil *

Bonar Colleano Bonar Sullivan (14 March 192417 August 1958), also known by the stage name Bonar Colleano, was an American stage and film actor based in the United Kingdom. Biography Early life Colleano was born Bonar Sullivan in New York City. He had childhood ...

as Alec *

Natasha Parry Natasha Parry (2 December 1930 – 22 July 2015) was an English actress of Russian descent. The daughter of film director Gordon Parry (film director), Gordon Parry, she was married to theatre director Peter Brook from 1951 until her death, and ...

as Eve *

Petula Clark Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades. Clark's professional career began during the ...

as Georgie Wilson *

Jane Hylton Jane Hylton (16 July 1926 – 28 February 1979, born as Audrey Gwendolene Clark) was an English actress who accumulated 30 film credits, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, before moving into television work in the latter half of her career in the ...

as Mary *

Diana Dors Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer. Dors came to public notice as a blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Dors was pr ...

as Carole *

Gladys Henson Gladys Henson (27 September 1897 – 21 December 1982) was an Irish actress whose career lasted from 1932 to 1976 and included roles on stage, radio, films and television series. Among her most notable films were ''The History of Mr. Polly ( ...

as Mrs Wilson *

Sydney Tafler Sydney Tafler (31 July 1916 – 8 November 1979) was an English actor who after having started his career on stage, was best remembered for numerous appearances in films and television from the 1940s to the 1970s. Personal life Tafler was bor ...

as Jim Fairfax * Douglas Barr as Peter * Fred Johnson as Mr Wilson * James Carney as Mike *

Kay Kendall Kay Kendall (21 May 1927 – 6 September 1959) was an English actress and comedienne. She began her film career in the musical film '' London Town'' (1946), a financial failure. Kendall worked regularly until her appearance in the comedy film ...

as Doreen *

Eunice Gayson Eunice Elizabeth Sargaison (17 March 1928 – 8 June 2018), known professionally as Eunice Gayson, was an English actress best known for playing Sylvia Trench, James Bond's love interest in the first two Bond films ('' Dr. No'' and '' From Russi ...

as Mona *

Dandy Nichols Dandy Nichols (born Daisy Sander; 21 May 1907 – 6 February 1986) was an English actress best known for her role as Else Garnett, the long-suffering wife of the character Alf Garnett who was a parody of a working class Tory, in the BBC sit ...

as Mrs Crabtree

Production

Filming took place in November 1949.

Peter Finch Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 191614 January 1977) was an English-Australian actor of theatre, film and radio. Born in London, he emigrated to Australia as a teenager and was raised in Sydney, where he worked in vaudeville ...

was offered a supporting role but did not appear in the final film. It was

's second film. The film was edited by

Seth Holt Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. Ac ...

, who called it "terrible." Actress

later called it "a ghastly film - quite one of the nastiest I ever made" although she received positive reviews.

Music

The bands of Geraldo and

Ted Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...

provide most of the music in the dance hall.

Reception

Some critics felt that the lead actresses were too glamorous for the working-class ladies whom they represented but agreed that Clark, slowly emerging from her earlier children's roles, and Parry, in her screen debut, had captured the spirit of young postwar women clinging to the glamour and excitement of the dance hall. The film premiered on 8 June 1950 at the

Odeon Marble Arch The Odeon Marble Arch (known as the Regal from 1928 to 1945) was a cinema in London located opposite Marble Arch, at the top of Park Lane, with its main entrance on Edgware Road. It operated in various forms from 1928 to 2016, and is most famo ...

in London.The Times, 8 June 1950, page 3: ''Picture Theatres – Odeon, Marble Arch''
Linked 2015-06-01 A review in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' stated, " e trouble with the film is that the characters do not match the authenticity of the background, and the working girls, who are the heroines, are too clearly girls who work in the studio and nowhere else" and concluded that the film "is not without its interest, but it does not quite live up to the high standards set by the Ealing Studios."The Times, 12 June 1950, page 6: ''New films in London''
Linked 2015-06-01 Unusually for an Ealing production of the time, the film tells the story about the four women and their romantic encounters from a female perspective, presumably the input of screenwriter Diana Morgan. The film retains interest as "an historical piece full of incidental detail: visual reminders of London bomb sites and

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

es, and references to

Mac Fisheries Mac Fisheries was a branded United Kingdom retail chain of fishmongers, founded by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, the co-founder with his brother of Lever Brothers, which later merged to become Unilever. Background Isle of Lewis In hi ...

, ''

Music While You Work ''Music While You Work'' was a daytime radio programme of continuous live popular music broadcast in the United Kingdom twice daily on workdays from 23 June 1940 until 29 September 1967 by the BBC. Initially, the morning edition was generally ...

'', football results and

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

." '' FilmInk'' wrote: "Dors is easily the best thing about the film, playing a saucy minx out for a good time, and does not get nearly enough screen time. The film focuses more on the adventures of Parry, Hylton and … Donald Houston."

References

External links

* * * * *
Review of film
at Variety
Dance Hall
at Letterbox DVD
Dance Hall
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of Atl ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dance Hall 1950 films 1950 drama films Ealing Studios films Films directed by Charles Crichton British black-and-white films Films set in London British drama films 1950s English-language films 1950s British films