Head over Heels (1937 film)

Head over Heels
Directed by	Sonnie Hale
Written by	scenario: Marjorie Gaffney adaptation: Dwight Taylor & Fred Thompson dialogue: Dwight Taylor
Based on	play by Francis de Croisset
Produced by	S.C. Balcon
Starring	Jessie Matthews Robert Flemyng Louis Borel Romney Brent
Cinematography	Glen MacWilliams
Edited by	Al Barnes
Music by	words & music: Mack Gordon & Harry Revel musical director: Louis Levy
Production company	Gaumont British
Distributed by	Gaumont British Distributors
Release dates	15 January 1937 (1937-01-15) (London, England)
Running time	78 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Head Over Heels is a 1937 British musical film directed by Sonnie Hale and starring Jessie Matthews, Robert Flemyng and Louis Borel. It was released in the U.S. as Head over Heels in Love.

Production

The film was made at the Lime Grove Studios in London with sets designed by Alfred Junge. It was based on the play Pierre ou Jack by Francis de Croisset (Paris, 1931).

Plot

In Paris, nightclub entertainer Jeanne (Jessie Matthews) falls in love with her dance partner, the idle, womanising Marcel (Louis Borel). When Marcel runs off with rich and glamorous film star Norma (Helen Whitney Bourne), Jeanne's true love Pierre (Robert Flemyng) comes to her aid, and helps find her work on the radio. After becoming a successful radio star, Jeanne becomes attractive once more to Marcel, but the faithful Pierre cannot risk losing her again.

Cast

• Jessie Matthews as Jeanne Colbert
• Robert Flemyng as Pierre
• Louis Borel as Marcel Larimour
• Romney Brent as Matty
• Whitney Bourne as Norma Langtry
• Paul Leyssac as Max
• Eliot Makeham as Martin
• Fred Duprez as Norma's manager
• Edward Cooper as Charles

Critical reception

Writing for The Spectator in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review, characterizing it as "a moribund tale of poor young people with ambitions in Parisian garrets". Greene concludes that the film is one of the "worst English film[s] of the quarter".

The Radio Times wrote, "Having made her movie name under the direction of Victor Saville, Jessie Matthews went to work for her four-time co-star and then husband Sonnie Hale, whose first outing behind the camera this was," but concluded, "Hale's inexperience shows away from the musical numbers. But it's engaging enough, and Alfred Junge's sets give the film a sophistication too often missing from British musicals of the period"; while Allmovie wrote, "Legendary British musical-comedy favorite Jessie Matthews chalks up another winner."

Bibliography

• Low, Rachael. Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
• Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986.

External links

• Head over Heels at IMDb