| Head over Heels | |
| Director: | Sonnie Hale |
| Producer: | S.C. Balcon |
| Based On: | play by Francis de Croisset |
| Starring: | Jessie Matthews Robert Flemyng Louis Borel Romney Brent |
| Music: | words & music: Mack Gordon & Harry Revel musical director: Louis Levy |
| Cinematography: | Glen MacWilliams |
| Editing: | Al Barnes |
| Studio: | Gaumont British |
| Distributor: | Gaumont British Distributors |
| Runtime: | 78 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Head Over Heels is a 1937 British musical film directed by Sonnie Hale and starring Jessie Matthews, Robert Flemyng and Louis Borel.[1] It was released in the U.S. as Head over Heels in Love.[2]
The film was made at the Lime Grove Studios in London[3] with sets designed by Alfred Junge. It was based on the play Pierre ou Jack by Francis de Croisset (Paris, 1931).[4]
In Paris, nightclub entertainer Jeanne (Jessie Matthews) falls in love with her dance partner, the idle, womanising Marcel (Louis Borel). When Marcel runs off with rich and glamorous film star Norma (Helen Whitney Bourne), Jeanne's true love Pierre (Robert Flemyng) comes to her aid, and helps find her work on the radio. After becoming a successful radio star, Jeanne becomes attractive once more to Marcel, but the faithful Pierre cannot risk losing her again.
Writing for The Spectator in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review, characterizing it as "a moribund tale of poor young people with ambitions in Parisian garrets". Greene concludes that the film is one of the "worst English film[s] of the quarter".[5]
The Radio Times wrote, "Having made her movie name under the direction of Victor Saville, Jessie Matthews went to work for her four-time co-star and then husband Sonnie Hale, whose first outing behind the camera this was," but concluded, "Hale's inexperience shows away from the musical numbers. But it's engaging enough, and Alfred Junge's sets give the film a sophistication too often missing from British musicals of the period";[6] while Allmovie wrote, "Legendary British musical-comedy favorite Jessie Matthews chalks up another winner."[7]