Rent Evergreen (1934)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Harriet Green (Jessie Matthews), a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, has a guilty secret: She has a baby daughter, born out of wedlock. Harriet leaves her public and flees to South Africa to raise her daughter quietly. The years pass, and now her daughter, Harriet Hawkes, returns to London as a young show-biz hopeful. Tommy (Barry MacKay), a wily publicity man, knowing that young Harriet is a dead ringer for her famous mother, convinces a theater producer to star her in a new revue as none other than the original Harriet Green, miraculously untouched by old age. The ruse works too well: Now the public believes Harriet is a well-preserved 60-year-old and Tommy is her son. The deception is more than merely inconvenient, because now Harriet and Tommy have secretly fallen in love. - Actors:
- Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale, Betty Balfour, Barry MacKay, Ivor McLaren, Hartley Power, Patrick Ludlow, Betty Shale, Marjorie Brooks, Buddy Bradley, Stewart Granger, Rita Grant, Miles Malleson, Charles Mortimer, Richard Murdoch, Cyril Smith, Norma Varden, Mona Washbourne
- Directors:
- Victor Saville
- Producers:
- Michael Balcon
- Writers:
- Benn W. Levy, Emlyn Williams, Marjorie Gaffney
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy, Music & Musicals, Romance
- Collections:
- Getting to Know..., Introducing a British Film Family
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Reviews (1) of Evergreen
Thirties Musical. - Evergreen review by Steve
Few of the many musicals released in the UK in the 1930s offer much entertainment today. The exceptions are the ones made by Gaumont, usually directed by Victor Saville and produced by Malcolm Balcon, which were better budgeted than the rest and looked to Hollywood for style and inspiration.
And crucially they starred Jessie Matthews, the biggest personality in British films during the depression. She was also in the stage version of Evergreen in 1930, a musical by Rogers and Hart, written and set in London. The daughter of a famous singer in the Edwardian music hall secretly poses as her dead mother in a nostalgia revue.
The plot rests on mistaken identity, and is indisputably crazy. But then, normal for a musical. At heart, it's typical of a Warner Brothers storyline, as the starving chorus girl becomes a star. The dance scenes are not in the class of Busby Berkley, but they are still distinctly good. There are some fabulous gowns too.
Jessie could dance in multiple styles, with her trademark high kicks prominent. She was a fine screwball actor and counterintuitively sexy. Her singing voice feels dated now and she has that strange, obsolete posh accent they all had back then. But her incredible star presence is undimmed. Gaumont never allowed her to go to Hollywood, which is cinema's loss.