Customer Reviews
The Great Anna Neagle. - By: Stargazer, 21 Feb 2008 
This DVD boxed set of some of the films of Dame Anna Neagle, is long overdue.
The films featured are Victoria The Great (1937), 60 Glorious Years (1938)
I Live In Grosvenor Square (1945) The Lady With The Lamp (1951) & The Lady Is A Square (1959).
Sixty Glorious Years & its predecessor Victoria The Great (both about the reign of Queen Victoria) were hugely popular in their day & great pains were taken by Director Herbert Wilcox to ensure the authenticity of the scripts. However, both films come across as stilted & too mannered for the 21st Century, a common problem with many films made in the thirties.
The Lady with the Lamp was a study of the life of Florence Nightingale and
the Crimean War. Flo was one of many strong woman characters that Miss Neagle played throughout her career, & the film was well recieved by the public. This is a good portrayal.
But Anna's better pictures seemed mostly to occur during the war years & just after.
I Live In Grosvenor Square(1945) is such a film. Miss Neagle co-stars with Rex Harrison & Dean Jagger in this love triangle about an Englishwoman who inadvertently fallls inlove with an American airman during the the war, much to the consternation of her boyfriend (Rex Harrison) & family.
The war-time story of love & loss, of sacrifice & stoic bravery stands up today as a film about about decent people trying to make the best of a bad situation, being both the war itself, & one man's loss of his longterm girlfriend to a Yank !
Derby Day is probably one which gets forgotten today. I was very pleased to see it included in the boxed set. It tells the story of a group from different walks of life on their way the see the English Derby.
The film stars the popular teaming of Anna Neagle with Michael Wilding, as well as Googie Withers, & her husband, actor John McCalllum. The film sets out to depict the difference in living styles of the working class (Witheres & McCalllum) the middle class (Michael Wilding) & the upper class (dare I add a flippant "landed gentry?) with Anna Neagle as Lady Helen Forbes.
The film moves from group to group with ease, & we are witness to crime, despair, humour, irony - alll in one day. An entertaining film.
For some reason I've never been able to fathom the film making tean of Neagle & her husband, the Director Herbert Wilcox, after making some very successful dramas & light comedies, suddeny chose the 1950's to go back to the musicals they did in earlier times & paid the the price.
(Unfortunately The Lady Is a Square was one of those & consequently, Anna Neagle's last fim).
But in between time they made some gems. Piccadilly Incident, Spring In Park Lane (my favourite) Odette (an excellent drama)and the Courtneys of Curzon Street - alll soon (we hope ) to be included on another Neagle - Wilcox - Wilding boxed set.
Anna Neagle was fine alll rounder, singer,dancer,comedienne, actor, with an adoring husband (Wilcox) who crafted his films to show her off at her best. She doesn't get anywhere near the credit today that she desrves.
When her film career was over, her husband declared a bankrupt, she showed her strength of character by going back to the theatre & treading the boards (which included at least one trip to Australia) with great success.
More Anna Neagle Please - By: C. Harding, 31 Jan 2008 
How wonderful to have at last some Anna Neagle films on DVD.
Please can we now have her London series which includes the wonderful Spring in Park Lane etc.
