Miranda

This is a rather harmless old black and white comedy-fantasy. I had never heard of it before this opportunity came along to watch it, and the only name I recognized was jolly Margaret Rutherford, a familiar and very busy character actress for decades. Glynis Johns carries the film with her pretty face, blond hair and vibrant personality. The fantasy aspect is that she plays a mermaid.

It is not a classic to join ones on my shelf for multiple viewings, but it is entertaining enough to be worth the time. Miranda is the mermaid that a doctor brings home from a fishing trip, whereupon every man in sight falls for her like a shot. (Listen, guys, you carry her across the room with her arms around your neck and see if you dont fall for her.) Th...

Griffiths Jones is ("Dr. Paul Martin") who leaves his wife to go on a Cornish fishing trip where he falls foul of mischievous mermaid "Miranda" (Glynis Johns) who holds him captive in her underwater grotto. Her condition for release is that he take her to London where, abetted by Margaret Rutherford as "Nurse Carey" she wreaks havoc, flirting with all the men she meets. It's a rather one-joke film that starts engagingly enough, but as the joke grows thin - and, frankly, preposterous, the performance of Johns starts to grate a little. Googie Withers is quite good as the doctor's somewhat sceptical wife, as is David Tomlinson as their rather hapless chauffeur but - like her tail - the story is just a bit thin and flails about a bit too much as it drifts from comedy to romantic melodrama