Penny Paradise (1938)
directed by Carol Reed
A 1938 British comedy film, produced by Ealing Studios. It was an early directorial assignment for Carol Reed, and along with many other British productions of the era such as the same year's better-known Reed-directed Bank Holiday, is described as: "...belonging to a wider studio tradition of modest representation of ordinary British life.
The film is set in Liverpool, where tugboat captain Joe Higgins (Edmund Gwenn), believing he has won a fortune on the football pools, resigns from his job and throws a party in a local public house where family and friends – some of whom have an eye on a share of the winnings – gather to celebrate his good luck. Higgins pays court to the widow Clegg (Maire O'Neill) who he has been wooing, while his daughter Betty (Betty Driver) is targeted by a chancer who sniffs money. The party grinds to a halt with the arrival of the hapless Pat (Jimmy O'Dea), Higgins' Irish first mate on the tugboat, who is forced to admit that he forgot to post the winning pools coupon. There now seems no reason for celebration, but Higgins is mollified when his former employer offers him the captaincy of the best tugboat on the River Mersey, a position to which he had long aspired.
The action of the film is interspersed with several musical numbers performed by Driver and one by O'Dea. While O'Dea's song is clearly provided for comic effect, those sung by Driver are presented straight.
cast
Edmund Gwenn as Joe Higgins
Betty Driver as Betty Higgins
Jimmy O'Dea as Pat
Ethel Coleridge as Aunt Agnes
Maire O'Neill as Widow Clegg
Syd Crossley as Uncle Lancelot
James Harcourt as Amos Cook
Jack Livesey as Bert
Frederick Burtwell as Policeman
production
Directed by Carol Reed
Produced by Basil Dean
Written by Thomas Browne, Walter Meade and Thomas Thompson
Music by Harry O'Donovan
Cinematography Ronald Neame and Gordon Dines
Editing by Ernest Aldridge
Studio Ealing Studios
Release date 24 September 1938
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