Sing As We Go

Sing As We Go is a 1934 British musical film starring Gracie Fields, John Loder and Stanley Holloway. The script was written by Gordon Wellesley and J. B. Priestley.

Sing As We Go
Music sheet for song "Love"
Directed byBasil Dean
Produced byBasil Dean
Written byJ.B. Priestley
Gordon Wellesley
StarringGracie Fields
John Loder
Dorothy Hyson
Stanley Holloway
Music byErnest Irving
CinematographyRobert Martin
Edited byThorold Dickinson
Production
company
Associated Talking Pictures
Distributed byABFD
Release date
September 1934
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Considered by many to be British music hall star Gracie Fields' finest vehicle, this film was written for her by leading novelist J.B. Priestley. In this morale-boosting depression movie, set in the industrial north of England, Fields stars as a resourceful, determined working class heroine, laid off from her job in a clothing mill, who has to seek work in the seaside resort of Blackpool. This gives her the opportunity both to fall into many misadventures and, of course, to sing.

The decision to film on location brings the film a life and immediacy all too absent from most films of the period. The film provides us with a snapshot of life in a seaside resort in the 1930s. The final scene of the millworkers returning to the re-opened mill while Fields leads them in the rousing title song has become an almost iconic film cliché.

Main cast

Critical reception

The Radio Times Guide to Film gave the film three stars out of five and described Sing As We Go as a "dated but spirited musical comedy...amusing and politically astute".[1]

By contrast, in History of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr singled out Sing As We Go as an icon of British pop culture of the 1930s, concluding: "Fairy tale or not, this is probably the worst film I have ever seen."

  • The main theme of this movie, the song "Sing As We Go" (written by Harry Parr Davies), was used by the comedy group Monty Python in a parody song called "Sit on My Face" and is one of two signature songs of The Kampen Janitsjarorkester Symphonic Band (The Kampen Band) of Oslo Norway.
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References
  1. The Radio Times Guide to Films 2014. London, 2013 ISBN 0956752365 (p. 1104)

Sing As We Go on IMDb


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