Keep Smiling (1938 film)

Keep Smiling is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Monty Banks and starring Gracie Fields, Roger Livesey and Mary Maguire. The film follows a group of performers who club together to buy a bus and travel around the country doing shows after they are cheated out of money by an ex-manager.

Keep Smiling
Directed by	Monty Banks
Written by	Rodney Ackland William M. Conselman Val Valentine
Produced by	Robert Kane
Starring	Gracie Fields Mary Maguire Roger Livesey Peter Coke Jack Donohue
Cinematography	Mutz Greenbaum
Edited by	James B. Clark
Music by	Bretton Byrd
Production company	20th Century Productions
Distributed by	20th Century-Fox
Release date	12 August 1938 (1938-08-12)
Running time	83 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£254,629[1]

Plot

Cast

• Gracie Fields as Gracie Gray
• Roger Livesey as Bert Wattle
• Mary Maguire as Avis Maguire
• Peter Coke as Rene Sigani
• Jack Donohue as Denis Wilson
• Hay Petrie as Jack
• Mike Johnson as Charlie
• Eddie Gray as Silvo
• Tommy Fields as The Three Bolas
• Gladys Dehl as The Three Bolas
• Nino Rossini as The Three Bolas
• Edward Rigby as Silas Gray
• Joe Mott as Bill Sneed
• Philip Leaver as De Courcy
• Gus McNaughton as Eddie Perkins
• Paula Rae Wright (Paula Raymond age 14) as Bettina Bowman
• Carol Adams as Dancer
• Joss Ambler as Max
• Monty Banks as Auditioner
• Hal Gordon
• Wilfrid Hyde-White as Assistant hotel clerk
• Eliot Makeham as Printer
• Julian Vedey as Hotel clerk

Production

It was the second film made by Fields under her contract with 20th Century-Fox. It was made at Pinewood Studios^[2] with sets designed by the art director Oscar Friedrich Werndorff. It was retitled Smiling Along to avoid confusion with another film with the same name, released by Fox in America the same year, and starring Jane Withers.

Fields' salary was £50,000 making her the best paid British based film star of the 1930s.^[3]