Life with the Lyons (1954)

Curiosità

Life with the Lyons is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Val Guest for Hammer Films and starring Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon and Barbara Lyon. It was a spin-off from the extremely popular British radio series Life with the Lyons, and the screenplay, by Guest and Robert Dunbar, was based on previous episodes from the show. It was shot at Southall Studios in London with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Arnold. This was Val Guest's first film for Hammer, and he was asked personally to be involved with the film by Ben Lyon himself. Filming began on Sept. 7, 1953, and it was trade shown at Studio One on Jan. 5, 1954.

Production

The Lyons' contract called for them to receive a percentage of the film's profits, since they did the film for only half their regular pay rate.

Val Guest had worked with the Lyons writing stage revues and says he got the job directing this film by walking past Ben Lyon in the street. Lyon told Guest that Hammer wanted to make a film of Life with the Lyons and asked Guest to direct. Guest went into meet James Carreras who "Said to me 'I don't know anything about comedy.

"Bebe was the driving force of that team," recalled Guest. "She was a very clever business woman, she drove that whole family, she drove the machine, she wrote the scripts – I'm talking about the radio thing, the TV things. She had files and files she'd brought from Hollywood, of old programmes she'd bought the scripts from – I'd never seen such a file of gags and routines... She was the driving force, very stimulating lady.

It was the second time Belinda Lee worked for Val Guest, the first being her debut in The Runaway Bus.

After the film's successful release, the Lyons began a long-running, BBC television series, also titled Life with the Lyons. The film was made at Southall Studios.

Leggi su Wikipedia · Testo da Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dati da Wikidata.