Raising a Riot is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Wendy Toye and starring Kenneth More, Shelagh Fraser and Mandy Miller about a naval officer who attempts to look after his three children in his wife's absence.
Plot summary
Commander Peter Kent of the Royal Navy and his wife May have three children, ranging from five to eleven years: Peter, Anne and Fusty. Kent comes home after three years abroad with no idea how to handle the children. When Mary has to fly to Canada, Peter takes his children to his father's new country home, which turns out to be a windmill. They end up clashing with an American family in the neighbourhood.
Cast
Kenneth More as Peter Kent
Shelagh Fraser as Mary Kent
Mandy Miller as Anne Kent
Gary Billings as Peter Kent
Fusty Bentine as Fusty Kent
Ronald Squire as Grampy
Olga Lindo as Aunt Maud
Lionel Murton as Hary
Mary Laura Wood as Jacqueline
Jan Miller as Sue
Nora Nicholson as Miss Pettigrew
Anita Sharp-Bolster as Mrs Buttons
Michael Bentine as The Professor
Dorothy Dewhurst as Mother
Robin Brown as Junior
Sam Kydd as Messenger
Production
The film was based on a 1949 book by American writer Alfred Toombs. The book was based on Toombs' real life experience of having to look after his children after having been away from them at war for three years. The book was adapted into a stage play by Tom Taggart in 1952.
One of the children is an uncredited Caroline John, who would later play Liz Shaw in Doctor Who.
In June 1954, filming was about to start on The Alcock and Brown Story for Alexander Korda, to be directed by Ken Annakin, produced by Lord Brabourne and Ian Dalrymple and star Kenneth More and Denholm Elliott in the title roles. It would be made under Dalrymple's Wessex Films banner. However Korda then went bankrupt, resulting in the receivers being brought in and the Alcock and Brown movie being cancelled. Lord Barbourne and Ian Dalrymple arranged with the receiver for that film's unit to be reassigned to a lower budgeted movie instead, Raising a Riot. Kenneth More agreed to star and Annakin was asked to take over the direction. Annakin wrote in his memoirs, "The idea of ‘going back’ to a small family comedy did not thrill me" (he started his directing career with the Hugget family movies) "and when I discovered a young woman called Wendy Toye had actually been preparing this project for months. I turned the offer down flat." Toye directed the film.
Toye called Dalrymple "the most fabulous film producer. He did everything in the world for me. And he really encouraged me and it was his idea for me to do Raising a Riot. And he asked me to show the story to Kenny More and see if I could get him to do it and I did. It was wonderful that he had such faith in me."
It was shot at Shepperton Studios near London with sets designed by the art director Joseph Bato.
Toye said working with children was not difficult "because I chose them very specially. They weren’t acting children, they weren’t from a school of acting. Not that I’m against that but they were the sons and daughters of actors, you get a feeling of it at home, and Jackie Billings' little son was the boy and Michael Bentine’s little daughter Posty."
Reception
Box office
The film was the eighth most popular movie at the British box office in 1955. Kinematograph Weekly called it a "money maker".
According to the National Film Finance Corporation, the film made a comfortable profit. This success was attributed to More's appeal.
Critical
The New York Times wrote, "Withal, it makes agreeable entertainment. Mr. More is a comical chap, particularly when he has a dog to cope with, as he had in the memorable Genevieve...Raising a Riot is an amiable little film"; while more recently, the Radio Times called it "an inconsequential, one-joke comedy, kept moving by the polished More, but old-fashioned and rather flat"; and AllMovie described how the film "goes off on several directions, many of them hilarious: some of the best scenes involve the kids' ongoing feud with a bunch of American children."