The Captain's Table
The Captain's Table (1959) | |
---|---|
Rank Organisation | |
Distributed by | Rank Film Distributors |
Release date | 6 January 1959 |
Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Captain's Table is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Jack Lee and starring John Gregson, Donald Sinden, Peggy Cummins and Nadia Gray.[1] The film is based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Richard Gordon, later adapted into the 1971 German film The Captain starring Heinz Rühmann.
Plot
After serving all his working life with the South Star line, exclusively in cargo ships, Captain Albert Ebbs meets his employer and is finally given command (albeit temporarily) of the SS Queen Adelaide, a
To add to his woes, most of the officers and crew, led by the chief purser, are
All comes out well – just. The captain finds himself engaged to be married to an attractive widow, the chief officer is also engaged to a young heiress, and the larcenous officers are arrested by Sydney police.[2]
Cast
- John Gregson as Captain Ebbs
- Peggy Cummins as Mrs Judd
- Donald Sinden as Chief Officer Shawe-Wilson
- Nadia Gray as Mrs Porteous
- Maurice Denham as Major Broster
- Richard Wattis as Chief Purser Prittlewell
- Reginald Beckwith as Captain's Steward Burtweed
- Lionel Murton as Bernie Floate
- Bill Kerr as Bill Coke
- Nicholas Phipps as Reddish
- Joan Sims as Maude Pritchett
- Miles Malleson as Canon Swingler
- John Le Mesurier as Sir Angus
- James Hayter as Chief Engineer Earnshaw
- June Jago as Gwenny Coke
- Oliver Reed as minor role
- Arthur Lowe as minor role
Production
The film was based on a 1954 novel by Richard Gordon, who had written Doctor in the House and its sequels which had been successfully filmed by the Rank Organisation. The film was made by producer Jack Janni and director Jack Lee who had made A Town Like Alice (1956) and Robbery Under Arms (1957). Jack Lee later recalled:
I thought I'd like to make a comedy, although I didn’t know anything about comedy. I said, “All we need are funny scenes, funny lines, actors who can pull faces, and that’s it’. Joe got a lot of marvellous people writing for it – Bryan Forbes, Nicholas Phipps and John Whiting – and they wouldn’t let me near the script. I liked Nadia Gray very much indeed. She brought a very different quality to the film, living as she did in Paris. Donald Sinden was very good too; it was a fairly conventional part for him, but when I saw the film again recently I was surprised at just how good he was. And we had some good old ham actors in it, like Reginald Beckwith, camping away like mad.[3]
Donald Sinden says Joseph Janni told him the film would involve three months' filming around the Greek Islands so the actor agreed to make it. Then this was changed to filming around the Channel Islands, then changed again to the
Filming started on 21 July 1958.[6]
Michael Blakemore has a small part.[7]
Reception
Box office
According to Kinematograph Weekly the film performed "better than average" at the British box office in 1959.[8]
Critical
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Except for a homosexual steward, played with relish by Reginald Beckwith, this mechanical farce relies entirely on stock characters and situations of depressing banality. John Gregson wades through his material, including a prolonged slapstick sequence, with commendable fortitude, and the rest of the players do all that is required of them."[9]
Variety called it "somewhat scrappy but amusingly lighthearted".[10]
References
- ^ "The Captain's Table". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
- ^ "The Captain's Table (1959)". BFI. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
- ^ McFarlane, Brian (1992). Sixty voices : celebrities recall the golden age of British cinema. BFI. p. 159.
- ISBN 9780753819852.
- ISBN 9780340262351.
- ^ "Hollywood Production Pulse". Variety. 6 August 1958. p. 20.
- ^ Blakemore, Michael (2004). Arguments with England : a memoir. pp. 188–189.
- ^ Billings, Josh (17 December 1959). "Other better-than-average offerings". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.
- ^ "The Captain's Table". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 26 (300): 17. 1 January 1959 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "The Captain's Table". Variety. 14 January 1959. p. 16.
External links
- The Captain's Table at IMDb
- The Captain's Table at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Captain's Table then-and-now location photographs at ReelStreets