Elstree Calling

Watch: Elstree Calling

Overview:

A series of 19 musical and comedy "vaudeville" sketches presented in the form of a live television broadcast hosted by Tommy Handley (as himself).

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

tap dancing
black and white
vaudeville
shakespeare in modern dress
blackface
skit
variety show
xylophone player
russian song
part in color
music hall song
romantic song

Cast

Tommy Handley

~ as ~

The Host

Teddy Brown

~ as ~

Himself

Donald Calthrop

~ as ~

Himself / Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew

Jack Hulbert

~ as ~

Himself

Helen Burnell

~ as ~

Herself

The Three Eddies

~ as ~

Themselves

Lily Morris

~ as ~

Herself

Will Fyffe

~ as ~

Himself

Cicely Courtneidge

~ as ~

Herself

John Longden

~ as ~

Himself

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 2 year(s) ago
5
A distinctly off-form Tommy Handley introduces this rather curious piece of cinematic entertainment that features a variety of stars from the British stage at the end of the 1920s. The mixture of musical, comedy and magical turns illustrates well just quite how a real pot-pourri of acts took to the stage in theatres up and down the UK - but there is no audience. Without the engagement, even applause, from those watching the whole thing comes across as a rather sterile collection of concert performances, as if filmed in an empty television studio. It has a couple of rather tenuous continuing threads that try to hold it together - one features a fellow with an elementary television trying, unsuccessfully usually, to catch some of the performance on his set. The other, has a more contrived Shakesperian theme to it that coupled with a lot of Handley's equally over-cooked links make this all rather a disjointed, and frankly rather staccato film to watch. As a curiosity, it is certainly worth a watch - but mainly just as a bit of nostalgia.