Stars gather for the funeral of great composer Ivor Novello.
-
Short Summary
-
Description
-
Data
- Film ID:
- 1443.12
- Media URN:
- 47199
- Group:
- Pathe newsreels
- Archive:
- British Pathé
- Issue Date:
- 15/03/1951
- Sound:
- Sound
- HD Format:
- Available on request
- Stock:
- Black & White
- Duration:
- 00:01:36:00
- Time in/Out:
- 01:17:52:00 / 01:19:28:00
- Canister:
- 51/22
Unknown user says
(Timecode 1.25-1.29)
Clearly visible in the newsreel - leaving the chapel (after Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert) - are Sir Laurence and Lady Olivier (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh). Oscar winner, Vivien Leigh had made one of her first stage appearances with Ivor Novello in "The Happy Hypocrite" in 1936. The couple were good friends with Ivor Novello.
The commentary is rather curious. It has a negative, dismissive, condescending tone as if whoever wrote the narrative felt that "normal" people would view the world of the theatre that Ivor Novello inhabited as freakish, unwholesome and bizarre. The thousands of people who evidently attended the funeral presumably would have disagreed with the critical tenor of the voice-over. At the time of his death, Ivor Novello had two shows running in London's West End - King's Rhapsody and Gay's The Word. He was pleasing and delighting the public not repulsing it!