The Dance Hall and the Milk Bar.Two staples in the life of young people in the 40s and 50s.Pubs were where dad came back from Sunday dinner time before falling asleep in the easy chair reading "The News of the World and listening to Billy Cotton,leaving you to take the dog for a walk.The big band era was in its death throes,finally and belatedly expiring about time Bill Hayley's first records found their way over here. Ted Heath and Geraldo were the big names in the late 40s,capturing the best musicians as they were demobbed and paying them big money. The Locarno,The Lyceum,The Palais......girls and boys usually went separately,drank,if at all,sparingly,and danced every dance as if it were their last. They were almost entirely the province of the working - class.Pale, toughened by six years of war and deprivation, determined to have the good time denied them by a mad dictator,they had one night a week away from restrictive parents when they could be amongst their peers.Naturally enough they made the most of it.Equally naturally their behaviour became the subject of disapproving articles in the newspapers such as "The News of the World" read avidly by boozy dads before falling asleep in the easy chair after Sunday dinner....and so it went on. The film "Dance Hall" would have offered worried 40s parents scant comfort,showing some of the girls as being no better than they should have been as my grandmother would have said. In a world populated by spivs,"cosh boys" and Yanks a girl would be well - advised to keep her hand on her ha'penny. Beautifully photographed by Douglas Slocombe,"Dance Hall" is an important social document,a portrait of an age of - if not perhaps innocence - then at least optimism.It features a fine performance by the ill - fated Bonar Coleano who was to die in a car accident a few years later having established himself as English Cinema's favourite Yank.It is sad to think that the pitiful dreams of those hopeful and vital young people were broken on the wheel of hard grind. "Dance Hall" is a poignant reminder of the brief time when the world seemed to have been their oyster.

This is good for one viewing but it's really a case of oh, what might have been, for in itself the premise - a portmanteau take on what, in 1950, was a real rival to the Regals and Odeons, namely the 'palais' to be found on every High Street throughout the land; live music from around fifteen musicians playing the hits of the day, all complete with one, preferably two vocalists - was sound and good for more mileage than is extracted here. The first hurdle we have to overcome is that four attractive girls each around 19 or 20 would opt for semi-skilled work operating machinery in a factory, rather than working in a shop or an office. Ten years previously no problem, with able-bodied men in the services women were drafted into factories, but these girls would have left school around 1946 and by 1950 when the film was set all the men that WERE coming back would have come back and expected to find their factory jobs waiting. Apart from that, of course, none of the four is convincing as a working-class girl. That aside we have the usual women's magazine stories of the four in, out, and looking for love. Few English films at this time would have been complete without a wooden leading man and Donald Houston duly obliges and in most of their scenes together Natasha Parry could just as well have sat him on her knee and murmured gottle of geer. The two real bands, led respectively by Geraldo and Ted Heath lend authenticity to the social history aspect but once is enough.

I suppose that you could call this a blast from the past.The time when women were supposed to be chaste not chased,and knew their place in the home.As a big band enthusiast I have to say that the most interesting aspect of the film is seeing Geraldo and Ted Heath in their prime.I did know Geraldo's widow and she had all of his 78 records safely stored away.This was really the swan song of that era.Within a few years the only big band leader left was Billy Cotton.He kept his musicians in full employment and died almost broke.I used to drive past Hammersmith Palais and when that closed an era ended.One of the aspects of life not specifically mentioned in the film was rationing on food and clothing.When Donald Houston opens all those tins he could have been eating a week's worth of rations.Also the parent's would have had to go into their clothing ration to buy the dress for Petula Clarke,so she would have been doubly upset.