Rent Simon and Laura (1955)
3.3 of 5 from 58 ratings
1h 25min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A television producer hits upon an idea for a new programme - an hour-long show, five days a week showing the trials and tribulations of the life of a married couple. The hook is that they are no ordinary couple - they must be famous, and the obvious choice is Simon (Peter Finch) and Laura (Kay Kendall) - a pair with a seemingly perfect life. That is, until the doors are closed...then, they argue, bicker and throw things at each other regularly. Will they be able to keep up their facade for the viewing millions?
- Actors:
- Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Muriel Pavlow, Hubert Gregg, Maurice Denham, Ian Carmichael, Richard Wattis, Thora Hird, Terence Longdon, Clive Parritt, Alan Wheatley, Beverley Brooks, Hal Osmond, Tom Gill, David Morrell, Nicholas Parsons, Joan Hickson, Charles Hawtrey, Stuart Saunders, Cyril Chamberlain
- Directors:
- Muriel Box
- Producers:
- Teddy Baird
- Writers:
- Peter Blackmore, Alan Melville
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
- Collections:
- A Brief History of Films About Television: Part 1, Cinema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 2, Getting to Know..., Introducing a British Film Family, People of the Pictures, Remembering Shirley Anne Field, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 02/08/2021
- Run Time:
- 91 minutes
- Languages:
- English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Brand-new 2021 interviews with actor Clive Parritt and assistant editor Jack Gardner
- Image Gallery
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Reviews (1) of Simon and Laura
Lights, Camera… Oh Dear - Simon and Laura review by griggs
The idea is cracking on paper: a warring theatre couple hired to play the perfect married pair on live TV, all fake cosiness on screen and flying crockery off it. Early on, Peter Finch and Kay Kendall bounce off each other with enough snap to suggest you’re in for something special.
Then the film splits them up, pads things with a beige extra couple and a half-hearted romantic muddle, and spends most of its time there instead. The chemistry you actually came for is rationed out in crumbs.
The TV satire has its moments – a chaotic Christmas broadcast, a few neat gags about live shows teetering on disaster – and there’s a faintly sharp sense of how television turns private mess into public wallpaper.
But it’s all so polite the claws never really come out. As curiosities go, Simon and Laura is mildly interesting, but unless you’re on a mission to hoover up 50s British media oddities, you’re not missing a hidden gem.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.