Spring in Park Lane (1948) is a romantic comedy based on the 1916 novel Come Out of the Kitchen! A Romance by Alice Duer Miller, which had been adapted as a Broadway play starring Ruth Chatterton and then a silent film at Paramount in 1919. Nicholas Phipps adapted the novel for the 1948 version, directed by Herbert Wilcox. Spring in Park Lane was the third pairing of Wilcox's wife, actress Anna Neagle, with Michael Wilding. The pair had already appeared together in the successful Piccadilly Incident (1946) and The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947).

The plot has a nodding acquaintance with Eric Hatch's later novel and the Carole Lombard-William Powell screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (1936), in which a down-on-his-luck socialite (Powell) takes a job as a butler for a 5th Avenue family and is pursued by the youngest and wackiest daughter (Lombard). In Spring in Park Lane, Wilding plays Lord Richard, who is cut off financially when he flees his wealthy relations. To survive, he gets hired as a footman to diamond merchant Joshua Howard (Tom Walls), whose niece Judy (Neagle) finds Richard very attractive. Screenwriter Nicholas Phipps, who appeared as the Marquis of Borechester, is also in the cast along with Nigel Patrick, Peter Graves (no relation to the American actor) and Lana Morris.

Wilcox and Neagle produced the film for their own company, Herbert Wilcox Productions, to be distributed by British Lion Film Corp and Eagle-Lion in the U.S. Neagle once remarked that they preferred to make "films that were light and gay" and Spring in Park Lane fulfilled that requirement. Shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, it proved to be immensely popular on its release on September 13, 1948. The Courier-Mail Brisbane reported in its January 8, 1949 issue that while the American film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) had been the 1948 box office champion in Britain, Spring in Park Lane was the most successful British film of that year. The Courier-Mail Brisbane disputed the critics calling it "airy-fairy" and argued that it was the reason why the film was such a hit. "The average British film-goer loved it. It was escapism and it transported the thought of millions from queues, austerity, and what-not to a fantastic pre-War era where nice moneyed people lived in Park Lane." The film critic for New South Wales' Daily Advertiser assured readers that "If the reaction of the audience at the opening of Spring in Park Lane at the Capitol last night is any indication, these two stars are in no danger of losing their titles of the screen's most popular couple. [...] It is a show that everyone should enjoy."

Just about everyone in Britain did. It was awarded Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Film from the Daily Mail National Film Awards (a poll of the country's filmgoers). It was the trio's third Best Film Award in a row. According to the British Film Institute's "BFI Ultimate Chart" of the most successful British films, last updated in 2012, Spring in Park Lane came in at number five with an estimated attendance of 20.5 million viewers.

SOURCES:

Ramsaye, Terry 1949-50 International Motion Picture Almanac
Dolan, Josephine and Street, Sarah "Twenty Million People Can't Be Wrong" British Women's Cinema
The Internet Movie Database
Mayer, Geoff Guide to British Cinema
http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/complete.php
"Spring in Park Lane" Daily Advertiser 6 Dec 49
"The Starry Way" The Courier-Mail (Brisband, Qld) 8 Jan 49

By Lorraine LoBianco