Sir Alec was his usual fine self, and the story is enjoyably trite and silly, but the constant, odd fade-outs instead of proper scene endings makes one think that this was a victim of Ealing Studio's death. Few of the scenes are allowed to resolve themselves,while a few shots needed to be cut much shorter (the Ancestral Ghosts and their overlong, unfunny dance, for instance - 20 seconds would've been enough) leaving one to assume that many minutes of the story were trashed by Ealing's "mortician".
The story would have been well served if we could have seen a few positive effects upon the Town, when the Pier became a Ship. Just a few shots of people crowding into sad restaurants and seaside rooming houses, while they awaited a 'berth' on the Arabella, would have built much expectation and suspense. I bet that such scenes WERE filmed but later chopped, as there are several references to the Arabella bringing much business to the Town, but we never see that.
I cannot recall another movie like this, where drama, dialogue, and music cues are cut-off by disturbing "fades-outs" of sound and picture. But if the MGM idiots (who also dumped its entire warehouse/library into pits along a highway) had anything to do with this, one should not be surprised.
The story would have been well served if we could have seen a few positive effects upon the Town, when the Pier became a Ship. Just a few shots of people crowding into sad restaurants and seaside rooming houses, while they awaited a 'berth' on the Arabella, would have built much expectation and suspense. I bet that such scenes WERE filmed but later chopped, as there are several references to the Arabella bringing much business to the Town, but we never see that.
I cannot recall another movie like this, where drama, dialogue, and music cues are cut-off by disturbing "fades-outs" of sound and picture. But if the MGM idiots (who also dumped its entire warehouse/library into pits along a highway) had anything to do with this, one should not be surprised.