Bona Fide buskers have long been replaced by aggressive beggars,"Big Issue" vendors with mean - looking dogs and white guys with dreadlocks and body - piercings juggling tennis rackets that tend to intimidate rather than entertain theatre queues.Back in the forties and fifties you would happily throw a shilling to Wilson,Keppel and Betty lookalikes doing a sand dance in Shaftesbury Avenue or "The Happy Wanderers" street band playing their English Dixieland(they even made a couple of L.P.s for "Esquire" - now collectors' items).St Martin's Lane itself runs into the Charing Cross Road near Trafalgar Square and is at the heart of the West End theatre district.At the time the movie was made,buskers worked clearly delineated pitches,unwritten but fiercely enforced laws prevented them from working both sides of the street and there were indeed families of buskers as there were families of costermongers,both considered lucrative and honourable trades.
"St Martin's Lane" the movie contains the requisite warm - hearted cockneys, and patronising nobs.The London vernacular owes a lot to Mr Bernard Shaw,an impression further encouraged by both Mr C.Laughton and Mr R.Harrison who speak their lines with theatrical relish.It might even be a "Pygmalion" variation if you wish to see it as such,adding spice to Mr Harrison's characterisation with the benefit of hindsight. Whatever you might feel about that possible interpretation of the story, the undoubted crux of the whole show is Miss V.Leigh whose performance shouts "I'm a Star " from her first appearance on the screen.Rarely has an actress grasped a movie by the scruff of it's neck and dragged it up several grades single - handedly in so spectacular a fashion.She has innocence and joie de vivre,beauty and grace and the camera loved her. Try as Mr Laughton and Mr Harrison might,she cannot be upstaged. For all their bathos and charm respectively they have to take a back seat to Miss Leigh's explosion of talent and energy.Twenty years later what a wonderful Eliza Dolittle she would have made. No wonder she and her husband were two of the biggest names in the cinema and theatre for two decades. Her "English" period can be exemplified by "St Martin's Lane" and "Waterloo Bridge",two superb London - based movies that show her beauty at its most radiant and her talent in its first great blooming. Since her tragically early death,British Cinema has had no actress able to express the wide - eyed naivety of the ingenue so beautifully. Those of you to whom Miss Leigh means only Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche Dubois would do well to seek out either of those wonderful pictures.
"St Martin's Lane" the movie contains the requisite warm - hearted cockneys, and patronising nobs.The London vernacular owes a lot to Mr Bernard Shaw,an impression further encouraged by both Mr C.Laughton and Mr R.Harrison who speak their lines with theatrical relish.It might even be a "Pygmalion" variation if you wish to see it as such,adding spice to Mr Harrison's characterisation with the benefit of hindsight. Whatever you might feel about that possible interpretation of the story, the undoubted crux of the whole show is Miss V.Leigh whose performance shouts "I'm a Star " from her first appearance on the screen.Rarely has an actress grasped a movie by the scruff of it's neck and dragged it up several grades single - handedly in so spectacular a fashion.She has innocence and joie de vivre,beauty and grace and the camera loved her. Try as Mr Laughton and Mr Harrison might,she cannot be upstaged. For all their bathos and charm respectively they have to take a back seat to Miss Leigh's explosion of talent and energy.Twenty years later what a wonderful Eliza Dolittle she would have made. No wonder she and her husband were two of the biggest names in the cinema and theatre for two decades. Her "English" period can be exemplified by "St Martin's Lane" and "Waterloo Bridge",two superb London - based movies that show her beauty at its most radiant and her talent in its first great blooming. Since her tragically early death,British Cinema has had no actress able to express the wide - eyed naivety of the ingenue so beautifully. Those of you to whom Miss Leigh means only Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche Dubois would do well to seek out either of those wonderful pictures.