30 July 2013 - Lady Godiva Rides Again & The Yellow Balloon

Ruth Ellis's one and only, blink-and-you'll miss her, appearance on film was in the 1951 comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (known as Bikini Baby in the States). I must have blinked as I did miss her (and Joan Collins in her debut too). Mind you, it's not easy trying to ascertain detail on an iPad mini screen. The film itself is quite entertaining, wittily written by John Dighton and Val Valentine and briskly directed by Frank Launder, he of the St Trinian's series fame. Most notably there is a fabulously sassy performance by the young Diana Dors as 'Delores August', a confident young beauty queen (and god knows the film needs it as the main character, Pauline Stroud's Marjorie Clark is a bit of a whiny drip). There is also a very funny cameo from the always brilliant Dora Bryan.

There's a rather dark edge to the comic proceedings though, with all these nubile youngsters being constantly peered over or seemingly procured by lecherous old men, the promise of a career in films (or at least an 'expensive looking' mink coat) on offer for... well, who knows. Watching the film in parallel to reading 'A Fine Day For A Hanging' it becomes ever more apparent why young women would turn to this seemingly glamorous lifestyle, in order to escape the endless austerity of post-war Britain. Ellis herself posed for risqué photographs for the Camera Club, knowing that she had what it took to raise male interest (so to speak). Her ambition even prompted her to change her appearance, from brunette to peroxide blonde in keeping with the 'blonde bombshell' look of the period's starlets - Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Dors herself. It reminds me of the line in Whittington's play, where Ruth taps her newly-blonde locks and utter the single line: "Hollywood". 

In order to get a feel for the atmospherics of London in the early 1950s, I have queued up a list of films produced and filmed in the capital at that time on LoveFilm. A DVD set called The London Collection was available, which the 1953 film The Yellow Balloon was part of. I had absolutely no idea what this film was about - perhaps some breezy children's caper set in the bombed out shells of London buildings. It certainly sets out that way, with a poor-but-happy domestic setting established and a jolly incidental score tripping lightly in the background. But boy does it turn dark - quickly and quite shockingly. And it gets darker from there on in, with the young protagonist Frankie (Andrew Ray) falling in and with and manipulated the rather unpleasant low-life Ray (a creeped out performance by William Sylvester). The theme of darkness persists right up to the finale, it's tense, noir-ish events playing out in an abandoned, bombed out Underground station. As with Lady Godiva Rides Again, the sense of austerity pervades the film, and the question of the effect it has on youth hangs in the air; the former lightheartedly suggesting young girls entering into what is essentially a form of prostitution, the latter a young boy inadvertently drawn toward the thrill of petty crime. It's an interesting period in our not-so-distant history, one that I am intrigued to discover more about.

On a separate (more trivial) note, this journey into the world of Ruth Ellis has brought to my attention certain links and connections. For example, Ellis appeared in Lady Godiva Rides Again featuring Diana Dors. Dors appeared in the film Yield To The Night, allegedly based on the Ruth Ellis story, directed by J. Lee Thompson. J. Lee Thompson was a prolific director in the UK, whose films included - 

The Yellow Balloon.

Creepy, huh?