GB
1931
1hr 10mins
Dir: Maurice Elvey
Starring: Gracie Fields and Ian Hunter
A girl still longs for her boyfriend who she thinks was killed in the First World War
This romantic comedy drama marked the screen debut of Gracie Fields who was already a music hall star. It incorporated Fields’ hugely popular signature song, Sally, itself a reference to Henry Carey’s 1725 song, Sally in Our Alley which had long been a traditional English country dance. The film was in fact based on Charles McEvoy’s 1923 play The Likes of Her and despite being a cheap production it was a huge success, establishing Fields as a national film star. There are a number of scenes filmed in a shop, which was shot entirely on a studio set, but the back-projection through the open doorway shows the passing London traffic contemporary for the time. Among all the buses and horse drawn drays are a couple of trams.
