Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953)

A Masterpiece!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is easy to be view Ealing comedies as some kind of comedy gold if you just watch the best of their output.However films like these give a more rounded view of Ealing Films a satirical misfire that misses its target by a mile.Stanley Holloway plays a departed drunken actor who takes a knock and meets Lucifer (also Stanley Holloway) down below and he gets send back to earth to spread the marvels of the television set which in time only causes misery.Television ownership took off with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Rising television viewers also had an impact on cinema audiences and the theatre as well with variety taking a big hit.We see old Mr Pedelty who is given a television set as a retirement present from his firm. He enjoys watching television and soon invites friends and neighbours round, throwing parties which soon gets out of hand and leaving him in debt for all the drinks and food he bought. Even the friendship he has made are shallow, people only wanted to know him because he had a TV set.He sells the TV set it to a newly married couple, the Norton's in the upstairs flat and pretty soon they have the same problems especially as he needs to study for his pharmacy exams and gets no peace and quiet. As Lucifer remarks, that TV is 'so much more effective than the old fashioned lodger' in splitting up relationships.Knowing the television set causes trouble he then gives it to his envious and petty former colleague, Hector at the pharmacy who becomes obsessed with the singer who performs a nightly show on television. The effect is to actually make him happier and better to go along with until her show gets cancelled.The episodic film starts of wickedly enough but becomes mundane and tedious very quickly. After all it seems to be a film more afraid of new technology which was to become a rival. Ealing Films eventually sold its studio to the BBC.

Just seen it again after many years, and what now impresses me is a a surprisingly good and sharp script. The script's critique of the negative effects of TV addiction is excellent and prescient for its day, considering how early this film was made into the march of TV (1953) which would eventually supplant film as the medium for our diet of social media.Incidentally, my parents had a set for the 1953 British Coronation, amongst the first in their neighbourhood and thus became that day a focal point for all those who did not yet have a TV.The Miss Lonelyhearts segment would work today in the way it could manipulate all those Mr. Lonelyhearts out there. Kay Kendall was never so alluring.Having said that, TV is today as important to me as it is to anyone else, at least where news and documentaries are concerned. There are, probably, some good effects in the ubiquity of TV, but I personally wonder what the final balance is. It is interesting that the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke observed how, along with Marshall Mcluhan, the Canadian media commentator, that TV has created a 'global village' and even the poorest of households will own a TV, even in the worst of slums or favelas, as they are known in South American. Indeed, I suspect that the social glue holding Latin American countries together are its soaps. That may hold good for the West, too. But back to the film; the ensemble acting is excellent, with Stanley Holloway as its focal point, but, goodness me, how gorgeous a young Barbara Murray and Peggy Cummings are, how they brighten the dreariness and blight of a post-war Britain all too slowly recovering from its wounds.

This film resonated with me being born in 1946 whose family first had a Murphy t.v.set in 1954 with its single BBC channel.Previously, my father had to drive us to his sister's house she shared with my paternal grandmother whose family already had bought a TV in 1953 on which we all saw the Queen's coronation that year.In the early part of 1954 we too had a roomful of neighbours & friends who did not possess a t.v. but who wished to view the novelty of watching t.v.London Live t.v. channel in the London area where I live are currently transmitting a collection of Ealing films mainly from the 40s & 50s and although I watch new ones whenever possible, "Meet Mr. Lucifer" had passed me by previously.This film had a galaxy of well known film stars which you can glean from the full cast list on IMDb.com.My favourite was seeing the late Kay Kendall playing "Miss Lonely Hearts Club" although I suspect it was not her voice that was dubbed onto the soundtrack.Very enjoyable I rated it 7/10.

Another in a long line of great black and white British films of the 1950's. When Mr Pedelty (Joseph Tomelty) leaves his firm, he is given a TV set as a retirement present. At first he enjoys all the attention from his neighbours,but soon the attraction wears off, and he sells it on to the young married couple (Jack Watling and Peggy Cummins) living in the flat above him. They soon encounter the same problems,and again the set is passed on to several different charatures all with the same results. A very enjoyable story with a strong cast including Kay Kendall, Barbara Murray, and as the pantomime devil Stanley Holloway.