After the Ball (1957 film)

This article is about the 1957 film. For other uses (including other films with this title), see After the Ball (disambiguation).

After the Ball
trade ad from Kinematograph Weekly
Directed by	Compton Bennett
Written by	Peter Blackmore Hubert Gregg
Produced by	Peter Rogers
Starring	Pat Kirkwood Laurence Harvey Jerry Stovin
Cinematography	Jack Asher
Edited by	Peter Boita
Music by	Ken Jones (Uncredited) Eric Rogers (Uncredited)
Production company	Romulus Films
Distributed by	Independent Film Distributors
Release date	13 August 1957 (1957-08-13)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

After the Ball is a 1957 British biographical film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Pat Kirkwood, Laurence Harvey and Jerry Stovin. It portrays the life of the stage performer Vesta Tilley.

Cast

• Pat Kirkwood as Vesta Tilley
• Laurence Harvey as Walter de Frece
• Jerry Stovin as Frank Tanhill
• Jerry Verno as Harry Ball
• Clive Morton as Henry de Frece
• Marjorie Rhodes as Bessie
• Leonard Sachs as Richard Warner
• Ballard Berkeley as Andrews
• June Clyde as Lottie Gibson
• Charles Victor as stagehand
• Tom Gill as manager
• Peter Carlisle as Oscar Hammerstein
• George Margo as Tony Pastor
• Mark Baker as George M. Cohan
• Terry Cooke as Dan Leno Jr
• Barbara Roscoe as Patricia
• Margaret Sawyer as Little Tilley

Production

It was made at Beaconsfield Studios with sets designed by the art director Norman G. Arnold.

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The problems of recreating on the screen the life of great artists is a constant one. On the one hand it is impossible to convey directly the quality of their artistic achievement; on the other hand it is difficult, without extravagant fictionalisation, to find much drama in a life so unsensational as that of Vesta Tilley (1864–1952). ...Pat Kirkwood performs Vesta Tilley's songs well and wears male costume with rare success; though she can hardly capture the quality Grein described: "Her face was like a city in illumination". Tame and artless though the film in general is, Pat Kirkwood's performance, the shameless sentimentality, the associations with the great music-hall days and above all, the marvellous old songs carry it along quite well."

TV Guide gave the film two out of four stars, and wrote, "(Pat) Kirkwood puts zest into the rousing music-hall numbers that made Tilley an enduring star, but the script trudges on and the wait between musical moments may not be worth the reward. It's incomprehensible how director Compton Bennett and writers Hubert Gregg and Peter Blackmore could have made such a yawn out of such a good true story."

External links

• After the Ball at IMDb
• After the Ball (1957 film) at AllMovie
• After the Ball then-and-now location photographs at ReelStreets