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Let the People Sing (film)

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Let the People Sing
Original British lobby card
Directed byJohn Baxter
Written by
Produced by
  • John Baxter
  • Wallace Orton
Starring
CinematographyJames Wilson
Edited byJack Harris
Music byKennedy Russell
Production
company
Distributed byAnglo-American Film Corporation
Release date
  • 10 August 1942 (1942-08-10)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Let the People Sing is a 1942 British comedy film directed by John Baxter,[1] and starring Alastair Sim, Fred Emney and Edward Rigby. The film's sets were designed by R. Holmes Paul. It was made at Elstree Studios.[2]

The screenplay concerns the people of a small town who band together to try to save their music hall from closure. It is based on the 1939 novel Let the People Sing by J. B. Priestley.[3]

Main cast

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Recent critical assessment

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Time Out wrote that "John Baxter was the British director probably least patronizing and most sympathetic to the working classes and their culture during the '30s and '40s, and even if his films now often seem naïve and simplistic, it's good at least to see an honest and humorous attempt to deal with life outside Mayfair. Less scathing than Love on the Dole (his best known film), this adaptation of a J.B. Priestley novel is a spritely, vaguely Capra-esque comedy... Fred Emney steals the show as a government arbitrator susceptible to the charms of alcohol."[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Let the People Sing, directed by John Baxter - Film review".
  2. ^ "Let the People Sing (1942)". Archived from the original on 13 January 2009.
  3. ^ Gifford, Denis (1 April 2016). British Film Catalogue: Two Volume Set - The Fiction Film/The Non-Fiction Film. Routledge. ISBN 9781317740636 – via Google Books.

Bibliography

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  • Murphy, Robert. Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1939-48. Routledge, 1992.
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