MarketThe Pleasure Garden (1953 film)
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The Pleasure Garden (1953 film)

The Pleasure Garden is a 1953 short film written and directed by James Broughton, starring Hattie Jacques, Lindsay Anderson, and John Le Mesurier.

Plot
Filmed among the ruins of the Crystal Palace Terraces, The Pleasure Garden is a poetic ode to desire, featuring a bureaucrat determined to stamp out any form of free expression. == Cast ==
Cast
Hattie Jacques as Mrs Albion • Diana Maddox as Bess • Kermit Sheets as Sam • Jean Anderson as Aunt Minerva • John Le Mesurier as Colonel Pall K. Gargoyle • Maxine Audley as Lady Ennui • Derek Hart as Lord Ennui • Jill Bennett as Miss Kellerman • Lindsay Anderson as Michael-Angelico • John Heawood as Mr Nurmi • Hilary Mackendrick as Miss Wheeling • Gladys Spencer as Mrs Jennybelle • Gontron Goulden as Doctor Hemingway • Victoria Grayson as Miss Greaves • Mary Lee Settle as Mme Paganini • Daphne Hunter as Girl in Grass == Reception ==
Reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This light extravaganza by the Californian poet James Broughton, whose 16-mm films (''Mothers' Day, Loony Tom'', etc.) have been seen over here, was financed by private subscription and shot entirely on location in the Crystal Palace Gardens, a perfect setting. It is a highly personal mixture of lyricism, mime, whimsy and caprice; some may find it too tenuous, but those who like it will like it very much indeed. It has a freedom all too rare in the cinema, and it is all freshly, unassumingly imagined: a real, a genuine lark. Professional and non-professional actors blend homogeneously under the director's eccentric guidance, Stanley Bate's music is full of entirely appropriate gaiety and invention, and Walter Lassally's photography is resourceful and attractively framed." == Accolades ==
Accolades
The film won the Prix de Fantasie Poetique at Cannes in 1954. == Home media ==
Home media
The Pleasure Garden was released on DVD in the UK by the BFI on 15 February 2010. The release also includes The Phoenix Tower (UK, 1957, 39 min.), a short documentary charting the construction of the BBC's Crystal Palace Television Tower, plus a fully illustrated booklet with film notes, an original review and a history of the Crystal Palace. == See also ==
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