Wonderful Life (1964)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

When the UK game show 'Pointless' asked contestants to name a Cliff Richard film in 2014, "Wonderful Life" would have won them the jackpot, because no one remembered this – Cliff's fifth film – fifty years on, and yet it was a film that changed things. After the poor reception and disappointing box office results of this one – it only eventually clawing its budget back in 1987 – Cliff abandoned his trademark quiff and instead went for a Beatle style comb forward. His support team of Melvyn Hayes, Richard O'Sullivan and Una Stubbs were dropped (although Una did later co-star with him in a TV adaptation of 'Aladdin') and there was a two year gap before Cliff and the Shadows (who had never been really used properly in his films) returned to the big screen with "Finders Keepers". And yet in 2015 I find myself strangely drawn towards this film despite – or maybe because of – its flaws of overproduction, poor acting, dull and unbelievable story and director Sydney J Furie's obsession with a new zoom lens. Susan Hampshire is so attractive. She bats her eyes and smiles and goes along with it all in a nice playful spirit – knowing it was rubbish bit determined to at least make people enjoy her performance. Cliff is Cliff. He sings some songs, most of which are terrible – but especially good is 'Matter Of Moments' – but Cliff never really looks at ease. Walter Slezak roars and shouts and gets it right. He plays a past it director with a sensitivity he hides until the end. Many years later when I started writing about old films, I asked a friend to watch it for me and give me an opinion – but he called back a week later to say that although he tried, he had never gotten beyond the opening fifteen minutes. Here's what I wrote about it in my book "What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)" when it arrived in Glasgow during week commencing 9th August 1964.When the Beatles started dominating the charts, Cliff Richard's image took a bit of a dent and it certainly wasn't helped with the timing of the release of "Wonderful Life" at the ABC Regal and Green's Bedford. "The Young Ones" had been a breakthrough musical and "Summer Holiday" had seen him at his film peak, but "Wonderful Life" tried to repeat the formula once too often and the plot of a load of old looking youngsters working at a movie location making their own film looked just daft. On top of that coming to town a couple of weeks after "Hard Day's Night" accentuated the gap between what young people wanted to see now, compared to the sort of all-round-entertainment on show here with dance routines that went on too long, show songs like 'Home' which would have been booed off at a music hall and a lengthy sequence on the history of cinema which brings the film to a shuddering halt. The film had been troubled with weather problems in the Canaries and original support choice Dennis Price had been fired allegedly for drinking and replaced by Glasgow born Derek Bond, and the only Cliff hit song was 'On The Beach'. Susan Hampshire (who had had a small part in "Expresso Bongo") and Walter Slezak co-starred, but this put Cliff's film career on hold for a couple of years. "A Woman's Privilege" with it was one of the 'Scales Of Justice' series about a bachelor who sues a girl who dupes him.Jim Doyle is the author of 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)', 'What We Watched In The 1970s (In The Cinema)" and 'What We Watched In The 1980s (In The Cinema And On Video)'

Let's face it, Cliff's greatest asset has always been his singing. His stage movement is notoriously naff, and he was never the greatest actor.But he was always surrounded with a tolerable ensemble and, especially here and in Summer Holiday, some sunny production values.The trouble is the story here is rather weak and the songs, with a couple of exceptions, are especially weak. Richard O'Sullivan, an actor of some ability, uses that ability to provoke extreme irritation. Melvyn Hayes is his usual comic relief fall guy. Una Stubbs is cute and dances the socks off everyone else (and would have been such a good leading lady if she'd ever been given the opportunity). Walter Slezak fulfills what the plot requires of him. And Susan Hampshire is versatile, fetching, and downright hot.The best sequence is an extended trawl through the history of movies - hardly profound, but fun.But it is all pretty dated stuff.

'Wonderful Life' has its moments. Moments when you feel you can close your gaping mouth and swallow. The rest of the time you are just blown away by the arrogance of the people who thought this qualified as entertainment in any way shape or form, by the stupidity of the people who put up the money - which looks to have been an awful lot - and by the tragedy of how this pile of undercooked nostalgia was the best the mainstream British film industry could be bothered to come up with at the time. Oh, and never mind the complete ego trip of Cliff, comparing himself to every mainstream film icon from Chaplin to Sean Connery - there's even a creepy bit where he is smooching Susan Hampshire in a bikini (pre-nose job, much nicer) and his hand wanders down to her lap, then his fly...no, it's a tiny gun on his key fob! Eee-Yeww! An honourable mention for Una Stubbs looking older than she does now and baring more midriff than Madonna, and the rest of it is rubbish songs ('On The Beach' is the best of a woeful bunch), bizarre choreography, school play acting, weedy singing, useless dubbing, faulty colour grading, you get the idea - presumably this was part of Cliff's plan to 'crack' the US market, but to me it's a rival to 'Take Me High' as something you want erased from your memory as soon a possible. And TMH was funny. NOT so bad it's good. So bad it's infuriating.

About half-way to two-thirds through this movie the kids get a crazy idea: "Let's make a movie!" Don't ask me why. Let's just say it's a cue for the only inspired bit in the flick: the kids get into costume and put on a shticky little history of the movies from The Little Tramp to James Bond. And even then the best parts are Susan Hampshire impersonating - in order - Ginger Rogers, Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, a Jet (not a Jet Girl - a Jet!) and a Bond Girl.Someday, when Hampshire's doing a T.V. interview, somebody should throw these bits on screen and get her reaction. It should be priceless.