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Why you should watch this 1950s film on any Sunday in November

car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - Michael Cole
car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - Michael Cole

The break of dawn this Sunday (November 6) marks the start of the 126th staging of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run which, Covid excepted, has taken place on the first Sunday in November without interruption since 1947.

To further celebrate this famous annual event, there can be one choice of viewing: a film greater than even The Fast Lady or The Wrong Arm of the Law. Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios spurned Genevieve when the film’s director Henry Cornelius approached him, and financial constraints meant that the Surrey countryside often had to double as Sussex. Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph’s critic moaned the script “has no verbal wit and the characterisation is implausible”.

Yet the result was one of the finest pictures in the history of British cinema – and one of incalculable importance to the historic car movement. The plot centred on two veteran car owners who stage an unofficial race on their return from the London-Brighton rally for a £100 wager. A limited budget meant that Cornelius employed up-and-coming actors rather than major stars to play the central quartet – Dinah Sheridan and John Gregson as Wendy and Alan McKim, Kenneth More as Ambrose Claverhouse and Kay Kendall as his girlfriend, Rosalind Peters.

car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - LMPC
car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - LMPC

The Veteran Car Club assisted with the choice of vehicles, so the eponymous heroine was a 1904 Darracq 10/12 Type O Roadster, while her rival was a 1905 Spyker 12/16-HP Double Phaeton.

The Rank Organisation released Genevieve on 28 May 1953. The British Film Academy declared it the Best British Film of the year, and there are countless reasons why it remains so unmissable nearly seven decades later. It made stars of Kendall and More and featured career-best performances from Sheridan and Gregson.

As with any great British film, the supporting cast is immaculate, from Michael Medwin as an expectant father and Geoffrey Keen’s sardonic traffic patrol officer to Joyce Grenfell as the manageress of possibly the worst guest house in Brighton. There is also an appearance from the ubiquitous Fred Griffiths as a barrow boy, and the only real absence in the cast list is a cameo from Sam Kydd.

As Cornelius extensively shot on location, the narrative captures a landscape that now looks impossibly remote. There was no back projection for the driving scenes, and our heroes travelled through a London and Home Counties of oblong road signs, police constables on point duty and newsreel cameras mounted atop Ford V8 station wagons. The final scene of the two cars heading towards Westminster Bridge resulted in such chaos for other road users that the authorities threatened the crew with arrest. And virtually everyone who has seen the picture has to turn away when Reginald Beckwith’s beautiful Allard K1 is pranged.

car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - Getty
car runs races brighton Genevieve film british bfi nostalgia - Getty

Above all, Genevieve is an honest view of the world of the old car; the writer William Rose was a UK-based American who brought an outsider’s affectionate perspective to the story. This paper’s reviewer marvelled at “that strange mania which compels otherwise normal men to spend time and money travelling in this most uncertain fashion”. But characters such as Alan, who frequently sulks and pays more attention to his car than his partner, are awfully familiar to many a classic enthusiast of 2022. No wonder Wendy is so exasperated at ostensibly responsible adults “hawling like brooligans”.

Today, the Darracq and the Spyker reside in the wonderful Louwman Museum in The Hague, while Genevieve was placed at number 86 in the British Film Institute’s Top 100 British films. Personally, I would have awarded it first place on the strength of the scene of Kay Kendall playing the trumpet alone.