HA'PENNY BREEZE is one of those low budget but enthusiastic little pictures currently doing the rounds on Talking Pictures TV, a British TV channel dedicated to showing old and forgotten British cinema. It's a typical kind of movie but one made with local charm and enthusiasm, and it reminded me rather a lot of the classic Children's Film Foundation pictures from the era. A couple of characters show up in their old home village in Suffolk to discover it forgotten and crumbling, so they decide to set up a yacht race to breathe new life into the locality. The writer and main star is none other than Australian actor Don Sharp, who would later become a director of B-pictures including THE FACE OF FU MANCHU and THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE. The plot is simplistic but the backdrop is well drawn and the film provides a fitting snapshot of rural life during the era.
Review of Ha'penny Breeze
