London Town (also known as My Heart Goes Crazy ) is a 1946 Technicolor musical film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Sid Field and Petula Clark.
Music Hall performer Field had cheered up wartime London audiences with his hugely successful stage variety shows, including Strike a New Note (1943), Strike it Again (1944), and Piccadilly Hayride (1946), so he seemed a natural for the lead. As he was of the opinion that no British director was capable of making a good musical, he insisted on having an American at the helm, and the task fell to Wesley Ruggles, who produced as well.
Kay Kendall was promoted as England's answer to Lana Turner. "Nobody had ever heard of me but they called me a star", she later recalled. "I opened bazaars, signed autographs, went to premieres, did everything a star was supposed to do. My photograph was on magazine covers and front pages of newspapers. And all before we'd ever finished the picture."
Guest said "Wes Ruggles needed somebody firm on top of him and he didn’t have anybody. I think they were overawed by his “weight” [gravitas] because his biography read like movie history. It just didn’t hang together, it was a very bad script". He added, "I spent quite a lot of time down there trying to hot things up, it was heart-breaking. Sid was also doing a show at the same time, and was having slight drinking problems – not a lot... Wes was sober during shooting yes, absolutely paralytic at night." It was a runner-up for best box office success in 1946 Britain. Kay Kendall said after the film's release there were "no more bazaars to open, no more premieres, no more autographs."
Kine Weekly wrote: "A sincere and ambitious attempt to match the best American Technicolor musical, and we wish it well. But wishing, contrary to the popular song, does not necessarily make it so. Faults there are in the film's construction, and you can't keep the truth from the box-office for long. ... Sid Field is terrific, and the proof of his genius is that he can still extract laughs from his familiar 'Slasher Green','Photographer' and 'Golfing' skits. There is never a dull moment while he's around. ... As for the plot, it soon gets lost. But, in spite of the film's lack of verve, novelty and balance, Sid Field still remains a comedy personality to be reckoned with."'
The Daily Film Renter wrote: "London Town strikes a new note in British film production. Here is a musical comedy with speed, assurance, spectacle and all the polish of the American product, presented in gentle English colourings, demonstrating typical English scenes and characters. One swallow doesn't make a summer, but one Sid Field certainly makes a musicolor. What a performance!"
Variety wrote: "Treatment of the film is thoroughly American, forcing the question why it should have been made in Britain at all. In every respect it apes the American model, and London, as the London Times points out, becomes a suburb of Hollywood. Most surprising of all is the quality of the musical items, which fail every time to stun the ear with haunting hits and lack good voices throughout."
Picturegoer wrote: "It runs too long, and the oases in a somewhat arid desert are mostly supplied by Sid Field, who proves that he has the potentialities of a first-rate screen comedian; he can, with good material, emulate his stage successes."
Music
Songs in London Town include "You Can't Keep a Good Dreamer Down", "The 'Ampstead Way", "Any Way the Wind Blows", a medley of Cockney songs ("Knock 'em in the Old Kent Road"/"Any Old Iron"/"Follow the Van"), "Don't Dilly Dally on the Way" (sung by Charles Collins), and "My Heart Goes Crazy", which was the title under which an abridged U.S. version of the film was released by United Artists in 1953.
In September 2006, the film's soundtrack – plus bonus tracks including four early studio recordings by Clark – was released on CD by Sepia Records.