This simple British comedy sparkles with wit, gentle satire, and affectionate good humour. The central performance by Gordon Harker, who was near the end of his career as one of Britain's best loved character actors, is a masterful display of full control of both the screen and of the story. The film is based upon a play by Rex Frost entitled SMALL HOTEL, which opened at the St. Martin's Theatre in London's West End on October 12, 1955. Very little information is recorded about Frost. We do know that in 1954, he wrote the script for a TV movie entitled THE JOLLY FIDDLER, and that is also the name of the hotel in this film. Whether the two works are essentially the same, or merely set in the same hotel, we do not know. It seems so difficult to find out even basic information about Frost that there is not much else to say of him. But he certainly was capable of writing some cracking one-liners, which are liberally sprinkled throughout the film and add greatly to its satirical bite. The film is thus not a farce but an intelligent comedy. Harker plays an elderly head waiter in the small establishment, where he has been in charge of the dining room (which he calls 'mine') for 40 years. Suddenly his position is threatened by a boorish and arrogant man from 'head office' (played by John Loder in obnoxious mode), who wants him replaced by an annoying and supercilious young woman waitress who is really his mistress and 'as common as dirt', as the expression used to go, or as one of the characters refers to her, a pumped-up trollop. She is played by the young Billie Whitelaw, who makes her suitably unsympathetic. The other highlight of the film is the splendid performance by Irene Handl as the cook, Mrs. Gammon. She lit up every film she ever appeared in, and this one has its celluloid scorched by her superb Cockney 'talking-back' and the blunt, bold, and grammatically imperfect tongue-lashings which she administers to anyone who messes with her. She can settle any conflict by saying sarcastically: 'Keep your wig on!' Comic support is given also by Janet Munro as the young waitress Effie, whose amusing and endearing hopelessness is the perfect complement and foil to Harker's effortless mastery of every situation. It is such a tragedy that this extremely talented actress died aged only 38, in 1972. She will always be remembered for her lead in role Val Guest's brilliant sci fi classic, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (1961, see my forthcoming review). Marie Lohr does an excellent job of playing a haughty lady with the sharpest of tongues. The film is well directed by David Macdonald, and it is a joy to watch such an intimate gem. It is very short, at only 57 minutes on the DVD (59 minutes according to its IMDb listing), which means that the play must have been cut by at least half an hour, and much of the film must have ended up on the cutting room floor as well. But never mind, whatever was lost is not missed, for the film works perfectly at its present length, and is marvellous. SMALL HOTEL may well have provided inspiration for the long-running TV series FAWLTY TOWERS (1975-1979), which dealt with a small hotel's misadventures as slapstick farce. But I prefer the more subtle approach, and this film certainly has it.
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