Dear Octopus (1943)

Three generations of a family gather together to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary, while the family secretary has the unenviable task of smoothing out all the deep-set hostilities and jealousies.

Date of release
1943-09-20
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 26m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Harold French

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Dear Octopus

Dear Octopus is a 1943 British comedy film directed by Harold French and starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Wilding and Celia Johnson. It was written by Patrick Kirwan and R. J. Minney from an adaptation by Esther McCracken of the 1938 play Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith.

Production

The film was a rare comedy from Gainsborough at the time in that it was not a vehicle for a specific comic.

Lockwood made it after The Man in Grey in the spring of 1943. She wrote in her memoirs that "there had been some trouble over the script of this film. Neither Herbert [her agent] nor I had considered the part which was offered to me sufficiently good. After much arguing my part was built up, but even so I was not pleased with the film, and felt that for me it had been a backward step."

Director Harold French later said "I'd liked the play and thought I could make a picture of it and I think I did some of it well." He called it "a lovely film to make, very harmonious cast. I was delighted to get away from war films and make something light and frothy. It was just what the public wanted."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended