Rather uneasily dedicated to Gene Kelly, this is a ramshackle comedy-musical with a ragbag of ingredients that just don't hang together. Everything in this film seems to be operating at half-cock, with the exception of its leading man, the sparkling Lindsay, who gets some chance, though not enough, to demonstrate the song-and-dance talents that took him to stardom on the London and New York stages in Me and My Girl. He lights up the screen every time the music plays, but the film itself just runs like a recipe hastily cobbled together for a rising star, with a few four-letter words thrown into the stew. Lindsay's a miner who dreams of stardom and turning his tatty British north country bingo hall into a glittering palace of entertainment. His subsequent misadventures on the road and then in California raise a few smiles, but are pretty rough-and-ready stuff, a criticism that could never be levelled at the elegant Mr L, doing his imitations of Keaton, Chaplin, Astaire and Kelly with uncanny style.


©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes