MIRANDA
UK, 1947, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Glynnis Johns, Griffith Jones, Googie Withers, Margaret Rutherford, David Tomlinson, Sonia Holm, John McCallum?
Directed by Ken Annakin.
Miranda is a pleasantly lightweight comedy from Britain of the late '40s. It was directed by Ken Annakin, establishing his career as a director of small British comedies. He was soon to work with Disney (Sword and the Rose as well as more spectacular films as The Swiss Family Robinson) and finally was to work internationally on some very big-budget films, for example, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and The Battle of the Bulge. The film is a vehicle for Glynnis Johns as a mermaid. Margaret Rutherford appears as her nurse and the supporting cast includes Googie Withers and David Tomlinson. There was a sequel in 1954, Mad About Men, directed by Ralph Thomas and filmed in colour. Margaret Rutherford reappears, as does Glynnis Johns in a double role.
1.Popular British comedy of the post-war period? Realism and fantasy?
2.The black and white photography, the English coast, the interiors for the drama? Musical score?
3.The title and the focus on Miranda, Miranda the mermaid?
4.The plausibility of the plot? The fairytale implausibility? But its being treated in a realistic, even naturalistic way? Miranda and her life as a mermaid? The life under the sea, her swimming, eating, her appearance? The tradition of the seductive female of the sea and Miranda and her flirting with the various men in the film? Charles, Paul, Nigel? Her devices for coming on land? Paul and his helping her, her outings, the opera? The ambiguities of life in the house, being in the bath, her food? Her tantalising the men, puzzling and alienating the women? Her friendship with the nurse? Her finally going back to sea? The mermaid as femme fatale?
5.The men and their relationships, Charles and Betty, Paul and Claire, Nigel and Isobel? The tangles with Miranda, the attraction, flirtation, Paul and his trying to conceal the relationship, Charles and Nigel and their infatuations? The possibilities of engagements? The plans falling apart and Miranda going back to sea?
6.The contrast with the women, Betty as the maid, Claire and her control, Isobel and her own flirtatiousness? The relationship with the men, the antagonism towards Miranda? The resolution and their finding their men again?
7.Margaret Rutherford as the nurse - and the enjoyment of her dithering style?
8.Popular entertainment? The variation on the battle of the sexes?
