| Upstairs and Downstairs | |
| Director: | Ralph Thomas |
| Producer: | Betty E. Box |
| Based On: | novel by Ronald Scott Thorn |
| Music: | Philip Green |
| Cinematography: | Ernest Steward |
| Editing: | Alfred Roome |
| Starring: | Michael Craig Anne Heywood Mylène Demongeot Claudia Cardinale |
| Studio: | Ralph Thomas-Betty E Box Productions |
| Distributor: | The Rank Organisation |
| Runtime: | 101 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Upstairs and Downstairs is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Michael Craig, Anne Heywood, Mylène Demongeot, Claudia Cardinale, James Robertson Justice, Joan Sims, Joan Hickson and Sid James.[1] It features the first English-language performance of Claudia Cardinale.
Richard Barry marries Kate, the daughter of his boss, Mr Mansfield. Mansfield tells Richard that he needs to take over the entertaining for their firm. Richard decides this will require hiring some domestic help at home, but there then follows a series of very unsuitable servants. Eventually, he hires a young Swedish blonde woman, Ingrid, who is most competent and liked, not only by Richard and Kate and their two children, but also by their male friends. But Ingrid likes Richard...
It was based on a 1957 novel by Ronald Scott Thorn, the pen name of Dr Ronald Wilkinson. Filming began in March 1959.[2]
Ralph Thomas and Betty Box made the film after a series of more expensive adventure films. "I'm glad we're back in comedy", said Box. "I like to make people laugh. I think they get enough crying in daily life. Also the results in comedy are more tangible. You hear where you succeed."[3]
Ralph Thomas later called the film "a light comedy which I liked very much... I had a great cast in that one... For its period it was a very effective, very small little comedy, which I think was really very funny."[4]
Michael Craig said "the jokes and the situations were pretty much the same as in all the other Box/Thomas comedies. That's not surprising as they were mostly written by the same person and had the same casts."[5]
Nicholas Parsons, who had a small role called it "a delightful domestic romp" where Demongeot "was incredibly sexy, and everyone fancied her like crazy."[6]
Sid James' eighteen month old daughter Susan appears in the film. James' biographer called the film a "glossy but empty-headed comedy... strangely out of touch for the late fifties." The ending of the film involves James' character announcing he has married a female colleague. Ralph Thomas said, "There is no way I could allow Sid to walk down the aisle. The public would never believe it and besides that battered face just doesn’t go with a romantic role."[7]
Upstairs and Downstairs was one of seven Rank films bought for release in the US by 20th Century Fox.[8]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This would-be souffié emerges as a depressingly heavy pudding. The fault lies principally in a jaded screenplay, based on a novel which can seemingly never have been suitable screen material. A host of familiar character actors go through their usual party pieces, but only Myléne Demongeot and Daniel Massey bring a spark of vivacity to the proceedings, and that in the last half hour. Miss Demongeot in particular, though an unlikely Swede, conjures a performance of mischievous charm out of the thinnest possible material."[9]
Variety called it "simple, rather uneven, yet amiable."[10]
Leslie Halliwell said: "Glossy, cheerful, empty-headed domestic comedy."[11]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "It must have been very frustrating for the cast of accomplished British performers, let alone for stars Claudia Cardinale and Mylène Demonget, to have watched all their efforts being frittered away by such dull leads as Michael Craig and Anne Heywood. As the newlyweds searching for the perfect servant, they are the weak link in every scene. But you can still enjoy seeing Cardinale as a man-mad maid, Joan Hickson as a secret tippler, Joan Sims as a timid Welsh nanny, Sid James as a put upon bobby and Demonget as a Pollyanna-like au pair."[12]
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "mediocre", writing: "Fairly dire comedy almost saved by Demongeot's sparkle in the last half-hour."[13]