“The only film directed by the British stage and film star Clive Brook,” noted The New York Times writer Dave Kehr in 2013. “[On Approval] opens as irreverently as a Warner Brothers cartoon, as an off-screen narrator interrupts a grainy clip of fighter planes attacking a battleship to sigh, “Oh, dear — is this another war picture?” Given the film’s year of release — 1944 — the narrator (E. V. H. Emmett, the best-known voice in British newsreels) must have been articulating the thoughts of a great many members of the battle-weary audience, and the film soon moves back, with the aid of some more newsreel footage, to a point somewhere in the distant Victorian past, evoked with the usual nostalgia for simpler times.”
In this drawing-room farce – a second film adaptation of an original play by Frederick Lonsdale – the setting is switched from the 1920s to the 1890s, making the action all the more shocking for its time. Beatrice Lillie and Googie Withers play two wealthy Victorian widows tentatively courted by two financially depleted British aristocrats. Clive Brook is George, the 10th Duke of Bristol, an aging, upper class rogue. Both he and his friend, Richard (Roland Culver) are in search of a wealthy woman to keep them in the comfort to which they hope to be reacquainted with, and when one of the dowagers suggests that Richard come away with her to her own Scottish island for a month to see if they are compatible, George wrangles himself on to the trip and the animosity unfolds with sharp-tongued jibes between the sexes.
📽️ Doors open 5.30, for drinks, nibbles & classic cocktails.
📽️ Films start 6.30 with a brief introduction from the curators.
📽️ Entry is free with a yearly ticket, although we suggest a small donation of £5 per person to help keep the lights on. Yearly tickets can be purchased on the door (£7.50 adult / £6.00 concessions).
📽️ If you buy tickets and are subsequently unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can give your seat(s) to someone else.