Peter Viney's Blog

The Fast Lady
1963

Directed by Ken Annakin
By Keble Howard
Screenplay by Jack Davies & Henry Blyth

CAST
Stanley Baxter – Murdoch Toon
Leslie Phillips – Freddie Fox
Julie Christie – Claire Chingford
James Robertson Justice – Charles Chingford
Kathleen Harrison – Mrs Staggers
Eric Barker – Wentworth

with cameos (all less than 10 seconds)  by …
Fred Emney – a golfer
Frankie Howard – a man in a hole
Gerald Campion – actor in Scottish TV show
Clive Dunn – an old man
Bernard Cribbins – man on stretcher
Bill Fraser – a golfer
Raymond Baxter, Graham Hill, John Surtees – themselves

The 60s Film Retrospective series

‘No! You’re not going to review THAT!’ said Karen
‘Only very quickly.’
‘Why? It’s total crap.’
‘BUT it features Julie Christie in a leading role, and it’s an example of a 1950s film made in the 1960s, so relates to the 60s retrospectives, because this is NOT what they’re about.’

Yes, it could be 1955 made alongside Genevieve, but was filmed in 1962, released February 1963.

Let’s be clear. The 1960s started in October 1962 when The Beatles sang Love Me Do on TV for the first time. It really got going in mid 1963. This film then, is the arse end of fifties movies.

We were trying to get our Sky Q Box to manage to finish recording something without disconnecting half way through. We need a Sky engineer but we’re in lock down. This was daytime TV, on Talking Movies, and noticing Julie Christie’s name on The Fast Lady which I had never heard of, I pressed the timer record button. A few days later, we didn’t feel like a long film, noticed it on RECORDINGS and said let’s give it a go.’ Mercifully, I’d never seen it before.

Plot …

Murdoch Troon (Stanley Baxter) is an enthusiastic member of the local cycling club, but long before the days of lycra. As cyclists will do in groups, he declines to let a Rolls Royce past in a country lane and gets driven into the ditch. The driver is Charles Chingford, or James Robertson Justice, wearing the same clothes and playing exactly the same part (Sir Lancelot Spratt) that served him so well through many Doctor in The House films between 1954 and 1970.

Murdoch is a professional Scot who sleeps in a tartan surrounded bed and has flaming red hair. His recreation is watching The White Heather Club or whatever.

He goes to complain about the damage to his bike and meets Claire (Julie Christie), Chingford’s daughter. His damaged bike gets run over and completely wrecked.

James Robertson Justice as Charles Chingford, Julie Christie as Claire

Claire gives him a lift home in her red Mini and persuades him to give up the bicycle, buy a sports car, and learn to drive.

Leslie Philips as Freddie Fox, Stanley Baxter as Murdoch Troon

Murdoch is a lodger in the same house as Freddie Fox (Leslie Phillips) a bounder in a blazer, with a pencil moustache. Freddie is a second hand car salesman (not to be stereotypical). He is facing the sack. He sells Murdoch a vintage Bentley racing car (“The Fast Lady”) for £500, cheating him as it was really only £475 and says he will teach him to drive if he buys it. He says it ran at Le Mans. If so, it would be worth one million now. If not, quarter of a million. The whole film is a parade of great fifties and early sixties cars too.

The driving lesson. Leslie Phillips produces driver’s licence.

They have a funny disastrous driving lesson nearly running over half of the contracted comedians on the studio’s books.

Then Murdoch has a funny disastrous driving test nearly running over the other half of the contracted comedians on the studio’s books. (see cameos above).

The driving test. Eric Barker as the Examiner, in hat of course

As the funny disastrous driving test comes to a funny disastrous end, they see a bank robbery (with a lovely Mk IX Jaguar). A policeman leaps into the Bentley and orders Murdoch to give chase. He does. They get them in a funny disastrous way. Murdoch gets the girl. That’ll do.

Julie Christie as Claire and Stanley Baxter as Murdoch

This is exactly what we used to sit through … the 16 year  Doctor inThe House series was never ending. Cars were funny. Scotsmen were funny. Scotsmen in kilts were funnier. Scotsman in kilts who were careful with money were funniest of all. Men with thin moustaches were bounders. It’s all filmed near the Rank Studios. ‘A J. Arthur Rank’ is Cockney rhyming slang for masturbation. Right.

Julie Christie is good. Posters appear to be much later in French, Spanish and Italian, declaring above the title ‘The first comedy by Julie Christie.’ This is its only claim to fame.

The Ken Annakin / Jack Davies team went on to Monte Carlo or Bust and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. They liked cars.

So … what the 60s Film Retrospective series is striving to avoid.

SOUNDTRACK
Andy Stewart sings A Scottish Soldier on TV.

JULIE CHRISTIE  … see also:
The Fast Lady (1963)
Darling (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Petulia (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Performance (1970)