JESSIE'S FILMS
SAILING ALONG
(1938)
Director:
Written by
SONGS:
My Souvenir Of
Love
My River
I'm Trusting My Luck
CAST:
Jessie
Matthews - Kay, the feisty barge-girl
Barry MacKay - Steve, who's more interested in stock
movements than Kay's dancing
Alistair Sim -
modernist painter, who sees Kay as a speck of
foam
Kay (Jessie Matthews) is a vivacious tom-boy who lives and works on a Thames river barge with her late father's best friend and his son. Apart from her considerable talents as a sailor, she has a genius for dance and song, entertaining the bargemen with her spontaneous routines. Although very happy with her lot in general, there is a point of real discontent in Kay's life : she is in love with her barge-mate, Steve, but he seems determined to see her only as a sort of little sister.
Oneday, as she is again vainly trying to bring her many attractions to the attention of this unnatural young man by dancing and singing up and down their barge, she is noticed by a soup millionaire who has an obsession with discovering and promoting raw talent such as hers. He offers her an audition with one of the leading stars of the day, and despite Steve's disapproval Kay keeps the appointment and eventually becomes the find her promoter has dreamed of. But Kay is not interested in a career on the stage - it's all an extravagant attempt to wake Steve up to the sexual tension between them.
Sailing Along is in many ways a departure for Jessie Matthews from the stylish ingenues in her earlier films - here we see her very much as a rough and tumble Cockney girl with an irrepressible earthy spirit. Delightful.
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