Febbre bionda (1955) watch online HD

Filmed partly on location in the West Yorkshire town of Batley (given the name Barfield in the film), you know what you are going to get as soon as you watch that Salvation Army band marching up the cobbled market place in the drizzle and soot. Good fun for those of us who live in the town spotting the landmarks. Batley's a lot cleaner now, and the buildings are sandstone again instead of black - it still rains a bit though.

Chaley (John Gregson) owns a rag mill, the economy of the town for much of the twentieth century being based on recycling rags into reconstituted cloth known as either 'Shoddy' (now used as an adjective), or 'Mungo'. And he does what all Rugby League fans do once a year, and that's head south for the sport's Challenge Cup Final. Taking the local stories into account, the weekend trip is as traditional as ever, involving a lot of beer, food and going to clubs and pubs - and the final itself of course.

However, it's not usual for one of the girls in a club to follow you back north in the hope of parting you from your money - and that's when the fun starts in 'Value for Money', especially if you already have a girl back home who's 'sweet on you'.

Good-natured comic shenanigans follow that pulls the legs of stereotypical northerners and southerners alike. Luckily, the twain shall meet after a few plot twists and turns, and it all works out right in the end.

Note - Fifty years after the film was released, people in the town still sometimes refer to Batley as Barfield, and you can here the name being shouted from the terraces at Mount Pleasant (Batley RLFC's ground) on many occasions.

Eh, it's grim 'oop north.

One of the best of the later British regional comedies, this one is most entertainingly plotted, sharply observed and delightfully characterized. In fact, this entry provides delightfully strong roles for John Gregson, Derek Farr, Charles Victor, Ernest Thesiger and company. The skillful plot introduces the super-lovely Diana Dors as a delightful catalyst. Production values are excellent. Directed by Ken Annakin with a commendable feeling for locale and stylish contrasts, this is a movie that fascinates from go to whoa. Best of all, the film is stunningly photographed in Technicolor by Geoffrey Unsworth, whose cinematography brings out both the beauty of the scenic locations and the squalor of the appropriately grimy townscapes.

A good "value for money" film demonstrating just how well the British (and even Yorkshire folk) can laugh at themselves. A good supporting cast headed up by Diana Dors who is irresistible to our hero Chayley from "oop north" and uses all her ample charms to help the poor lad to get value for his money. Unfortunately only a minor role for Leslie Philips in one of his earlier films.

When John Henry Broadbent, a wealthy and notoriously miserly Yorkshire industrialist, dies, he leaves his son Chayley a legacy of £62,000, a princely sum in 1955. (Chayley, apparently, acquired his unusual name when the registrar, a southerner unused to the Yorkshire way of speaking, misheard the name "Charlie", which is what his father really wanted to call him. As the pronunciation of "Charlie" would be much the same in Yorkshire and southern dialects, this seems unlikely). At first the young man seems to be just as tight-fisted as his father, much to the dismay of this long-suffering girlfriend Ethel, a journalist on a local paper. On a trip to London, however, Chayley decides to visit a nightclub where he meets a beautiful young showgirl, Ruthine. At first Ruthine does not take much interest in Chayley, but when she finds out how much he is worth she decides that he is a catch worth pursuing, and a battle breaks out between her and Ethel for his affections. Guess who wins.

"Value for Money" follows the standard romantic comedy formula of A+B-C=D, where A stands for "boy loves girl", B for "girl loves boy" and C for the obstacle to their love which much be removed to achieve happy ending D. In this case, however, there are two obstacles to the love of Chayley and Ethel, the first being his meanness with money and the second Ruthine. This is, however, a good-natured film, so there has to be a happy ending even for the mercenary Ruthine, who discovers that there is more than one wealthy young man in town.

Had this been an American film, there would doubtless have been a scene in which Ethel takes off her glasses and lets down her hair to show Chayley and the world that she is just as lovely as Ruthine, if not more so. As this is a British film, Ethel is nowhere near as attractive as her rival, but the implication is that her Yorkshire grit and her solid, dependable girl-next-door character count for far more than Ruthine's flashy, superficial beauty. This being the fifties, Ruthine is inevitably played by Diana Dors, but the film strengthened my view that comedy was not really her forte, even though that was the genre in which most producers wanted to employ her. There seemed to be a preconceived idea that brunettes were for serious drama and blondes- especially platinum blondes- for the funny stuff.

This is, in fact, one of those romantic comedies which revolves around preconceived ideas, the two main ones being "all northerners, or at least all Yorkshiremen, are tight-fisted", and "all beautiful woman are gold-diggers". Whether you find the film amusing probably depends upon whether you find those two ideas believable. In 1955 there were probably quite a lot of people who did, or at least enough people who did to make it worth the studio's while to churn out a film with this particular plotline. Today the whole thing just looks a bit silly and dated. 5/10

Diana Dors was billed as the British Marilyn Monroe. A few years before her death I saw her opening an arcade in the Isle of Man. By that time she had ballooned in weight but she still could bring out the crowds. I was only a kid so did not really know what all the fuss was about.

In Value for Money, Dors plays glamourous singer and actress Ruthine West who gets enticed up to Batley to open a children's play area.

The cause for her relocation from chic London is Chayley Broadbent (John Gregson) who has inherited his father's textile fortune. Like his later father Chayley is a miser who watches the pennies. His long suffering fiancée Ethel, a local journalist wants Chayley to go to London to enjoy himself and find a purpose away from his father's penny pinching ways. He finds Ruthine in a show instead and instantly falls in love with her.

So Chayley, Ruthine and Ethel are in Batley. Ruthine hates the grim Yorkshire industrial town but likes Chayley's money. Ethel hangs around patiently for Chayley to come to his senses.

Value for Money is a colourful light romantic comedy, with a couple of nice musical numbers.

Chayley is a shallow fool who is always hearing his late father's muttering about not driving a hard enough bargain. It is a bit of froth and fun. Dors does look slim and sexy. It is a mildly entertaining movie with dated views on women.

This is a gentle comedy that meanders along in a fairly charming and harmless way. It isn't one of the best comedies of this period but it features a good cast, is nicely directed and is beautifully shot.

Gregson's accent is not that of a Batley (Barfield) resident but whether he could have managed it or not, the real thing might have been too much for most UK audiences leave alone those in the rest of the world.

The film portrays a few stereotypes; the Yorkshire folk who are pretty straightforward but 'careful' with money and those in London, many of whom are little better than two-faced thieves by comparison. They could easily have gone further, but they went far enough as it was. I found the interjections of Chaley's deceased father rather funny, but not that much else was any more than pleasantly amusing. The scenes in which Diana Dors (real name 'Fluck', which was understandably changed "should one of the bulbs go out when my name is in lights") appears in public and generates a major stir are probably quite realistic; at the time she was a star/sex symbol on the up (amongst other things there were 3-D nude photos of her published the previous year) and this film was one of five she did that was released in 1955.

If you like Britsh comedies of the period, have a local connection to Batley, or are a big Gregson or Dors fan, this should certainly be seen. For others it is still well worth viewing just for Unsworth's excellent photography and as something of a period piece.

Diana Dors plays a Joan Blondell type of ro;e in what can best subtitled "Gold Diggers of 1955"She doesn't appear till the half hour mark but gives the film the boost it sorely lacks at that time.The problem is that the film tries to extract far too much comedy out of regional stereotypes.For some reason filmmakers of that era characterised all Yorkshiremen as tight with their money and knowing little of anything outside the county.Dors is the rather unlikely woman whom Gregson becomes besotted with.Today he would be called a stalker !Even more unlikely is her trip to Gregsons home.The complications that arise between her and Susan Stephen are only mildly amusing,Maybe the film makers were trying to exploit Gregsons success in "Genevieve".If so they failed totally.