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Description
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Comedy about the owners of two vintage motor cars, friends and rivals. High Court lawyer Alan McKim always enters his veteran (i.e., pre-1905) car Genevieve for the annual weekend London to Brighton run. Although it is not technically a race, he accepts a wager with his friend Ambrose to see who can return first to Westminster Bridge. Alan's wife Wendy is not so fond of the rally but agrees to go along as it means so much to her husband. Ambrose brings along his trumpet-playing new girlfriend Rosalind, who in turn brings her St Bernard dog. Saturday's journey to Brighton is filled with various mishaps, mechanical and otherwise, but after a row in Brighton the gloves come off and Sunday's journey back becomes a treachery-filled, cat-and-mouse game of oneupmanship, with everything now to lose. Filming locations included: Rutland Mews South, Knightsbridge (for the McKim's mews); Batchworth Heath, Hertfordshire (where Genevieve breaks down and a newsreel camera films them); the One Pin pub at Hedgerley, Bucks (where Ambrose gets locals to push his car); Hawkswood Lane, Bucks (where Rosalind has to push the car stuck in the ford); Stanwell Mill, Horton Road, by the River Colne (where Genevieve overheats); the The Jolly Woodman pub, Littleworth Road, Bucks (where Ambrose fears that Genevieve has crashed). In his book "The Golden Gong: Fifty Years of the Rank Organisation, Its Films and Its Stars", Quentin Falk says that the film's budget was £115,000. In his memoirs 'Me and My Big Mouth', composer Larry Adler says that he was offered no fee for the music but 2.5% of the producer's share of the profits, which came out (he claimed) as far more than the actors' fees. Because of his political views, Adler's name was not included in the film's Academy Award (Oscar) nomintation for Best Score, which cited instead only Muir Mathieson, the film's music director, who had helped Adler piece together his fragments of score into its final form. Years later the Academy acknowledged Adler's composing of the nominated score. Casting note: In an interview with a George Formy appreciation website, Dinah Sheridan noted of 'Genevieve': "They wanted Claire Bloom for my part and Dirk Bogarde for John Gregson's," she recalls. "They wanted Guy Middleton instead of Kenneth More, and even Kay Kendall wasn't their first choice!" (See: https://www.georgeformby.co.uk/ladies/sheridan/biog1.html ) [BFI]
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