The Card

The Card (1952)

He's the cheekiest man in town!

A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing - some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a certain very predatory woman.

Date of release
1952-02-25
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (42)
Runtime
1h 25m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Ronald Neame

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Pinewood Studios
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

The Card is a 1952 British comedy film version of the 1911 novel by Arnold Bennett. In America, the film was titled The Promoter. It was adapted by Eric Ambler and directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson, and Petula Clark. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.

Production

Ronald Neame was making The Magic Box at Elstree Studios when he looked at literary properties that Associated British had bought the movie rights for but never filmed. He was attracted to Arnold Bennett's The Card, believing "with the right actor playing Denry Machin, it would be a great project." He bought an option to the novel off Robert Clark of Associated British, hired Eric Ambler to write a script and asked John Bryan to produce.

Neame said "there was only one actor" to play the lead and that was Guinness, who agreed. Neame also said he "bought it because I thought it was a perfect Guinness part."

The movie was financed through British Film-Makers, a short lived production scheme that operated in Britain in the early 1950s as a co operative venture between the Rank Organisation and the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC).

The film was shot in August 1951. It was made at Pinewood Studios near London and on location. Location shooting took place largely in Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent, the basis for the fictional location of Bursley, and in the North Wales resort Llandudno. The football match was filmed at York Road, home of Maidenhead United FC.

For Guinness, playing the romantic lead was a departure from his previously comic roles. The film was one of the first adult screen roles for Clark, who received her first screen kiss. Clark recorded a vocal version of the film's theme, with lyrics by her long-term accompanist, Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson.

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

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