Keep Smiling (1938 film)

Keep Smiling
Directed byMonty Banks
Written byRodney Ackland
William M. Conselman
Val Valentine
Produced byRobert Kane
StarringGracie Fields
Mary Maguire
Roger Livesey
Peter Coke
Jack Donohue
CinematographyMutz Greenbaum
Edited byJames B. Clark
Music byBretton Byrd
Production
company
20th Century Productions
Distributed by20th Century-Fox
Release date
  • 12 August 1938 (1938-08-12)
Running time
83 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£254,629[1]

Keep Smiling is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Monty Banks and starring Gracie Fields, Roger Livesey and Mary Maguire. The film follows a group of performers who club together to buy a bus and travel around the country doing shows after they are cheated out of money by an ex-manager.

Plot

Cast

Production

It was the second film made by Fields under her contract with 20th Century-Fox. It was made at Pinewood Studios[2] with sets designed by the art director Oscar Friedrich Werndorff. It was retitled Smiling Along to avoid confusion with another film with the same name, released by Fox in America the same year, and starring Jane Withers.

Fields' salary was £50,000 making her the best paid British based film star of the 1930s.[3]

References

  1. ^ Chapman, Llewella. "'The highest salary ever paid to a human being': Creating a Database of Film Costs from the Bank of England". Journal of British cinema and television, 2022-10. Vol. 19, no. 4. Edinburgh University Press. p. 470-494 at 487.
  2. ^ Wood p.89
  3. ^ Chapman, Llewella. "'The highest salary ever paid to a human being': Creating a Database of Film Costs from the Bank of England". Journal of British cinema and television, 2022-10. Vol. 19, no. 4. Edinburgh University Press. p. 470-494 at 483.

Bibliography

  • Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
  • Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.


Stub icon

This 1930s comedy film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.