Discovered a young Renee Houston film

[stuart.uk]

On Sunday morning by accident I watched the British war movie Two Thousand Women. It starred Phyills Calvert, Patrica Roc, Jean Kent, Anne Crawford and Flora Robson, but it was Scottish actress Renee Houston who caught my eye, in a film about 2 thousand British women interned in occupied France by the Germans.

My experience of Renee until I saw TTW, was of handsome, slightly overweight actress, who despite her attractiveness, appeared older than her 50-something yrs when she did films like A Town Like Alice with Virginia McKenna, then in her early 60s with films like Nurse On Wheels with Juliet Mills and the two Saint episodes A Wonderful War with Noel Purcel and The Gentle Ladies with Barbara Mullen. However, she still looked good in her late 60s when she played Kenneth Cope's mum in Carry On At Your Convienence. Mind you one of the last things she ever did, a Scot's chat show hosted by Bill Tennant, she still had a handsome look about her

So it was a bit of a thrill to see her, at 42, looking beautiful and slim in TTW, as tomboy Maud. She even at the end did a concert where she wore her blonde hair long, had on a top half of a tuxedo and showed off a pair of shapely legs..........................................................Mind you her singing voice left a lot to be desired, but then again nobody's perfect Lol.

As a footnote it was also interesting to see a young Dame Thora Hird running around dressed in slacks, in comparison to the elderly aged roles she became famous for in the 80s and 90s.

I discovered a great comic cat fight between Renee and Lili Palmer in a film A Girl Must Live. Sadly I'm no longer able to put the you tube video on SSO software

[phil noir]

I saw this film last year. It's not an all-time classic by any means, but, as you point out, Stuart, has a great cast of British female stars of the '40s. I especially liked Patricia Roc and Anne Crawford, both from Millions Like Us, made the year before, and another favourite of mine.