MEET ME TONIGHT

UK, 1952, 80 minutes, Colour.
1. Red Peppers: Ted Ray, Kay Walsh, Martita Hunt.
2. Fumed Oak: Stanley Holloway, Betty Ann Davies.
3. Ways and Means: Valerie Hobson, Nigel Patrick, Jack Warner, Jessie Royce Landis, Yvonne Furneaux.
Directed by Anthony Pelissier.

Meet Me Tonight contains three Noel Coward's short plays. They are all witty, sharp and clever and presented here in the best tradition of English style and precision.

Red Peppers is a humorous curtain-raiser that is not without its sting. It shows a picture of provincial Music Halls and the characters who perform there - a mixture of burlesque, farce and pungent domestic drama.

Ways and Means is a daffy and delightful piece about a husband and wife on the Riviera with only their charm, gambling spirit and bad luck. They are determined to make good and, with the help of a burglar, they unexpectedly do. Jessie Royce Landis does another of her abominable American middle-aged widows. With dialogue like this, she is even better than in The Swan, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest.

The second part, Fumed Oak, is the best, a picture of dreary suburbia and the breakfast table squabbles that reflect day by day intolerable bitterness. There are only two scenes: breakfast and after tea, but the conflict and clash of personalities (husband wife, daughter and mother in law) is close to life, excellently written and excellently acted. Comedian Stanley Holloway, in a serious role, creates one of the best parts he has played. A most entertaining film. For discussion purposes, Fumed Oak, is a must.

Red Peppers.

1. What was the point of the story - music-hall life, provincial English theatrical tradition. the life of has-been theatrical people, clashes of personalities and pride, or something of all of these?

2. How did the dialogue in the dressing-room sequence convey the feelings between husband and wife and the theatre tensions?

3. How did small details convey insights into character very quickly in this short story? e.g. the poor singing and dancing of the Peppers. Miss Grace putting the tea-cosy on the alcohol bottle, the conducting of the music?

Fumed Oak.

1. Noel Coward called this an 'unpleasant comedy'. What did he mean?

2. Why was the breakfast scene so funny yet so real? Elsie's cold, the nagging and the smart remarks, the silent father?

3. What did you feel about each of the characters at the end of the breakfast ?how did Harry's not hurrying to work suggest that something out of the ordinary hum?drum life was going to happen?

4. How did you feel when Harry came in and they were off to the pictures leaving him the cold leftovers?

5. Why was his telling-off scene so successful? Was it funny? Was it realistic? Was he justified?

6. What values and manners and assumptions of day-to-day middle-class living was he attacking?

7. What was wrong with each of the three generations of women?

8. Was he fair in walking out on them? Did he abandon them without pity?

Ways and Means.

1. Was this merely a piece of witty froth about society life and irresponsibility?

2. Why was Olive caricatured?

3. Why was this story funny and entertaining?

4. Which story did you think was best. and why?