The Good Companions

I always preferred this film to the book – although Priestley was an accessible and clever writer his sub-Dickens style and standard left wing leanings (ie support of state capitalism and not socialism) put me off a little. And of course on a much more important if shallower level to me the 25 year old Jessie Matthews was the main thing in here!

Four separate people in provincial Britain are on the tramp to somewhere after leaving their homes, jobs etc to search for life and adventure. They all converge at Rawsley in the Midlands on a jolly pierrot troupe on its last legs called the Dinky Doos, join them and eventually turn their fortunes around as The Good Companions … after it starts raining. There's an endless great British cast, most notably simple Jess Oakroyd from Bruddersford (surely Bradford/Huddersfield?) who was played by avuncular Edmund Gwenn with an OTT Yorkshire accent and talented Inigo Jollifant by angular John Geilgud with an OTT Cambridge accent. The rising star of the troupe Susie Dean was played by lovely Jessie Matthews who had two spellbinding songs, Three Wishes sung with Geilgud and a magically tear-struck Let Me Give My Happiness To You – the money shots are her close ups during this! There was a fine orchestral accompaniment throughout and with only occasionally hokey lapses the production was superb. The solitary message is plain: working together to overcome adversity for a common purpose - even though the ending is altered from the book the various outcomes are the same.

Altogether a memorable film for the non-serious looking for innocuous entertainment from another world, the serious should stick to the book as Priestley's works are Art. Absolutely!