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Genevieve
- favourite film

The rather insipid plot in the 1953 comedy Genevieve – strangely the script was nominated for an Oscar – fades into the background, and the background including Larry Adler’s memorable harmonica music (his score also Oscar-nominated, rather more understandably) comes to the fore. We don’t really care about the bet between the two rivals played by the worthy John Gregson and the two-dimensional Kenneth More , their wooden acting reeking of provincial rep – Gregson is better by far in Whisky Galore! and The Titfield Thunderbolt, but then as a general rule Ealing trumps Rank. Their magnificent old cars, however, are another matter, and we can equally enjoy the countryside they pass through there-and-back on the London-Brighton Run, Westminster Bridge providing a fitting framework for the denouement. Though Dinah Sheridan might prefer to remember her role in The Railway Children , she and the ill-fated Kay Kendall put their male counterparts in the shade, Kendall’s drunken trumpeting a rare comic highlight.
But long after we forget the story, the music of Genevieve remains. Adler was offered a one-off fee or royalties. Advised to choose the former he went with the latter, and as he used to say that decision put his kids through college. The jaunty and adaptable theme showed off his incredible virtuosity on the harmonica, a skill that saw the likes of Vaughan Williams compose for him.

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