After the Ball (1957 film)

After the Ball is a 1957 British biographical film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Pat Kirkwood, Laurence Harvey and Jerry Stovin. It portrays the life of the stage performer Vesta Tilley.

Cast

 * Pat Kirkwood as Vesta Tilley
 * Laurence Harvey as Walter de Frece
 * Jerry Stovin as Frank Tanhill
 * Jerry Verno as Harry Ball
 * Clive Morton as Henry de Frece
 * Marjorie Rhodes as Bessie
 * Leonard Sachs as Richard Warner
 * Ballard Berkeley as Andrews
 * June Clyde as Lottie Gibson
 * Charles Victor as stagehand
 * Tom Gill as manager
 * Peter Carlisle as Oscar Hammerstein
 * George Margo as Tony Pastor
 * Mark Baker as George M. Cohan
 * Terry Cooke as Dan Leno Jr
 * Barbara Roscoe as Patricia
 * Margaret Sawyer as Little Tilley

Production
It was made at Beaconsfield Studios with sets designed by the art director Norman G. Arnold.

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The problems of recreating on the screen the life of great artists is a constant one. On the one hand it is impossible to convey directly the quality of their artistic achievement; on the other hand it is difficult, without extravagant fictionalisation, to find much drama in a life so unsensational as that of Vesta Tilley (1864–1952). ...Pat Kirkwood performs Vesta Tilley's songs well and wears male costume with rare success; though she can hardly capture the quality Grein described: "Her face was like a city in illumination". Tame and artless though the film in general is, Pat Kirkwood's performance, the shameless sentimentality, the associations with the great music-hall days and above all, the marvellous old songs carry it along quite well."

TV Guide gave the film two out of four stars, and wrote, "(Pat) Kirkwood puts zest into the rousing music-hall numbers that made Tilley an enduring star, but the script trudges on and the wait between musical moments may not be worth the reward. It's incomprehensible how director Compton Bennett and writers Hubert Gregg and Peter Blackmore could have made such a yawn out of such a good true story."