Farmer Chris Lowe meets and falls in love with Molly , a chorus-girl. Despite the fact that she is a city girl through and through, she accepts his proposal of marriage and after the wedding goes to live on the farm. Chris realises that the transition for Molly will be difficult, and in an attempt to ease her into farm life, buys her a strawberry roan calf to look after. Unfortunately Molly finds the adjustment to rural life extremely difficult and does not settle down. She fails to integrate into the local community and starts to feel she has made a big mistake.
Director: Maurice Elvey.
Writers: Elizabeth Baron, A.G. Street (novel).
Stars: William Hartnell, Carol Raye, Walter Fitzgerald, Sophie Stewart, John Ruddock, Wylie Watson, Petula Clark, Joan Maude, Joan Young, Ellis Irving, Kynaston Reeves, Norman Shelley, Patric Curwen.
Elvey’s style is usually stodgy but the key attraction of the film is William Hartnell as star. During the mid-40s the future DR. WHO played four starring roles but these were not enough to keep him in that status. Instead, he went on to play character roles such as Dallow in BRIGHTON ROCK and Sergeant Bullimore in the ITV comedy THE ARMY GAME a decade later. Lacking the handsome leading man personae of contemporaries James Mason and Stewart Granger, Hartnell nevertheless supplies an exemplary performance in this promising role. Thanks to rarefilmm for showing this as I’ve been trying to see this for years, the only mid-40s star role I’ve not seen to date. Hopefully, the rare MURDER IN REVERSE that I saw on UK TV decades ago will one day surface.