This is good for one viewing but it's really a case of oh, what might have been, for in itself the premise - a portmanteau take on what, in 1950, was a real rival to the Regals and Odeons, namely the 'palais' to be found on every High Street throughout the land; live music from around fifteen musicians playing the hits of the day, all complete with one, preferably two vocalists - was sound and good for more mileage than is extracted here. The first hurdle we have to overcome is that four attractive girls each around 19 or 20 would opt for semi-skilled work operating machinery in a factory, rather than working in a shop or an office. Ten years previously no problem, with able-bodied men in the services women were drafted into factories, but these girls would have left school around 1946 and by 1950 when the film was set all the men that WERE coming back would have come back and expected to find their factory jobs waiting. Apart from that, of course, none of the four is convincing as a working-class girl. That aside we have the usual women's magazine stories of the four in, out, and looking for love. Few English films at this time would have been complete without a wooden leading man and Donald Houston duly obliges and in most of their scenes together Natasha Parry could just as well have sat him on her knee and murmured gottle of geer. The two real bands, led respectively by Geraldo and Ted Heath lend authenticity to the social history aspect but once is enough.
Review of Dance Hall
