Two Left Feet (film)

Two Left Feet is a 1963 British comedy-drama film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Nyree Dawn Porter, Michael Crawford, David Hemmings and Julia Foster. It is based on David Stuart Leslie's novel In My Solitude (1960).

Plot
Alan Crabbe is a callow youth desperate for a date with any girl who can offer him the experience he lacks. Every time he tries a manful stride into the jungle of sex, his two left feet turn the attempt into a trip-and-stumble. Then he meets Eileen, the new waitress at the corner cafe, and sparks begin to fly.

Cast

 * Michael Crawford as Alan Crabbe
 * Nyree Dawn Porter as Eileen
 * Julia Foster as Beth Crowley
 * David Hemmings as Brian
 * Bernard Lee as Mr. Crabbe
 * David Lodge as Bill
 * Michael Craze as Ronnie
 * Dilys Watling as Mavis
 * Cyril Chamberlain as Miles
 * Michael Ripper as Uncle Reg

Soundtrack
Tommy Bruce sings "Two Left Feet" over the opening credits of the film; later Susan Maughan sings "Where Were You When I Needed You?" .

Release
Baker's expectations were high, hoping to attract wide popularity with a young audience, since most of the film's leading players were under 21. In his memoirs he writes: "The cast turned out to be one of the best I've ever had. They were all terrific and the film turned out well." But there were difficulties obtaining a release. None of the actors were stars, the film was given an X Certificate, and it was eventually released on a poorly promoted double bill, after a delay of two years.

Baker called it "A disaster. I fiddled around, tried to make a picture of my own which I did, put money into it. That was a nice little picture, with a wonderful cast... and I was quite pleased with it, but nobody wanted to show it, nobody wanted to see it, we couldn’t get a circuit release and so I went into television."

Reception
Kine Weekly said "Drama of modern teenagers and their love lives, with a strong odour of the kitchen sink. . ... The film is a commercial contradiction, a young romance designed for young audiences and barred to them by the X certificate. The picture fails on nearly all counts. ... It is a pity that such a promising young actor as Michael Crawford. ... should be wasted on such unrewarding toil".

In the New Statesman John Coleman wrote "Hesitantly, though, to be recommended for the vestigial sense of teenage loyalties communicated: anxiety about a mate engaged to a bird who may be well into her twenties, general ganging up as and not necessarily with knives as against the adult scene."

Variety called the film a "flimsy, ill-developed pic concerned with the turbulence of adolescence; disappointing and unlikely to make much of a mark at the box office. ... It is difficult to pin down just what has gone wrong with Two Left Feet, but with the exception of Miss Porter and, occasionally, Crawford, it has the look of a very tired piece of old hattery."

Monthly Film Bulletin said: "The best of this film is comically true to life; ... The plot, like the dialogue, runs into entertaining little byways that lead nowhere, but which do suggest an observation slightly above average."

Leslie Halliwell opined: "Ponderous sex comedy with no apparent purpose but some well observed scenes."