In the early ‘50s, the situation at the Rank Organisation had changed. I’d call it an odd transitionary phase, but in some ways they never really came out of it, at least not in any way that would be deemed ‘successful’ in any conventional sense. I suppose dormancy was technically a way to get out of it. Anyway, in 1952, J. Arthur Rank, perhaps unexpectedly, inherited the actual family business (flour) upon his brother’s death, leaving the day to day running of his entertainment empire to new managing director John Davis, a former accountant who aimed to tighten up the company’s wonky finances with a load of cut backs to the production arm and diversification into other fields. As you might have inferred, this meant that the sort of films that the likes of David Lean and Powell & Pressburger were putting out for the company in the ‘40s were no longer on the cards. Davis was far less inclined to indulge the artistic whims of directors or producers or that, as well as a staunch advocate for good clean wholesome entertainment for all the family (more so than old man Rank despite the latter originally getting into the business with the intention of making more edifying and family-friendly films than were flooding the market at the time). Suffice to say, this resulted in pretty much all of the major talent of the previous era leaving for elsewhere as the number of British studios investing big in film had grown quite a bit after the war (British Lion, then under the aegis of Alexander Korda seems to have been a popular destination). I largely bring this up because I’ve seen some incredulity online that this particular film was produced by the same company that had put out The Red Shoes, Oliver Twist and the Olivier Hamlet (all 1948) less than a decade prior. (Though given how the organisation was, er, organised in its heyday, they were technically all made by entirely separate companies within Rank, as indeed was this one (though by this juncture a lot of these subsidiary companies had been closed or sold off or consolidated), and likely didn’t have much in the way of overlap.)

On the ferry back from Ireland, Peter Weston (Donald Sinden) finds himself in possession of a tame alligator through some contrived means. The man he’s meant to be sharing the cabin with (Wilfred Lawson) is leaving his wife to be with his precious pet, Daisy, ‘cause the missus doesn’t care for her. Upon being confronted with the fact that this seems excessive, he promptly goes back to his wife, offloading Daisy onto Peter because he looks the sort to be good with animals. Oh, well. Also on this boat is Moira O’Shannon (Jean Carson), airy-fairy closer-to-earth type and colossal animal lover, who catches him trying to ditch the ‘gator overboard and guilts him into keeping it by pointing out that he’s a shitty person. She won’t take Daisy herself, ‘cause she’s got too many pets already. Also the zoo won’t take her either, as Moira’s a zookeeper and reckons the zoo’s got enough alligators already, thank you very much. Unfortunately, Peter’s grandfather, the General (Stanley Holloway), is staying round his place and he hates crocodiles SO DAMN MUCH and alligators are close enough. Furthermore, Peter’s fiancée, Vanessa (Diana Dors), daughter of a tycoon, wants him and his parents and, eh, the General too, so long as he’s there, to come to her family pile over the weekend to meet her darling daddy (James Robertson Justice). Will Peter be able to sort out the Daisy situation before everyone has to go off the country? Of course, he bloody won’t. What sort of film do you think this is?

So, yes… the point of comparison made many times before is that this is Bringing Up Baby (1938) except that it’s with an alligator rather than a leopard and also it’s bad. This… isn’t entirely off the mark. As that implies, it’s not entirely on the mark either. It kind of oversells how lacklustre An Alligator Named Daisy is (and possibly how good Bringing Up Baby is), and also quite how similar to the earlier film it is beyond ‘nebbish has problem with exotic pet’. It actually doesn’t really repeat any of the other plot beats. Part of the problem however is that Daisy has nowhere near the sense of focus that Baby has. The premise of ‘Katherine Hepburn’s wacky heiress has lost her aunt’s leopard and wants Cary Grant’s uptight palaeontologist for whom she’s hot for some reason to help her find it’ takes up pretty much all of the older film. Daisy however has so much going on that feels pretty much disconnected to the issue at hand that it seems like it’s going for the ‘something everyone’ approach. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this is the musical numbers. Oh, yes, this film has them; I’d say that Moira has a tendency to burst into choreographed non-diegetic numbers, but that makes it sound like it happens more than twice. The other songs, not sung by her, are entirely diegetic and don’t have any elaborate dances attached, and it all comes off a bit as it not really knowing what it wants to be. There are tons of scenes that do little to really serve the plot such as Harry Green’s turn as a music mogul or the much-ballyhooed appearance by Margaret Rutherford as a pet shop owner who can talk to animals (and whose scene features some exciting research failure as to what language they actually speak in Brazil). Credit where it’s due; the film’s scattershot nature does mean the plot takes some unusual routes to the inevitable ending, with the most predictable climax to the tale wherein everyone finding out about the eponymous Daisy actually being dispensed of by the end of the second act, instead taking turn into a much stranger and theoretically more charming third act. Unfortunately, this turn also kind of makes the ending to the actual film fall all the flatter when the obvious does happen and Peter and Moira hook up. This, naturally, isn’t helped by the second act being one of those farces that revolves entirely around keeping things secret for no real reason. There’s never a reason given as to why Vanessa shouldn’t be aware of the alligator (some people, yes, but her, no). She doesn’t seem to have any great aversion to the creatures. It’s a point purely for comic friction in the relationship, and it just ends up frustrating when the whole scenario becomes based around entirely pointless secrecy and wacky gaslighting, with lots of misunderstandings caused by people either intentionally or unintentionally not volunteering information properly and talking in ways that seem incredibly unnatural in order to avoid revealing said information and therefore keep the farce ongoing.

This all sounds a bit harsh. There are frankly much worse British comedy films of the period, such as the execrable adaptation of Three Men in a Boat (1956), a film that neatly encapsulates all that was wrong with British films of the period. Certainly, it has its moments. Not all of them are intentional, mind you. One of the most frequent sources of amusement is the not-at-all subtle cutting between the real alligator and the prop one as required. As a bonus, the prop is hilariously unconvincing. That aside though, the various parties involved do seem to be doing their best with what they’re given. Donald Sinden is somehow miscast in one of the most Donald Sinden-y roles imaginable by virtue of being too old at this point to pull off being a young and eligible gadabout, but he still manages to be affable enough that you can understand why the ladies are interested in him; it helps that the script seems aware of when he’s being shitty. They even have him apologise to his fiancée and admit he was treating her awfully which feels rather uncharacteristic of this sort of film. Diana Dors isn’t given much to do beyond be the straight woman to Jean Carson’s free-spirited type; hang about, look pretty, wear fancy gowns and lingerie, have a saucy bathing scene, and be generally rather over-sexualised considering the nature of the film; but she manages to wring a good amount of empathy for her underwritten character. The supporting cast ham it up appropriately, culminating in James Robertson Justice’s performance as Diana Dors’ doting newspaper magnate father who apparently can and will sway the masses at the drop of a hat in order to ensure his daughter’s happiness. Oh, yes, there’s some media satire in here… and stuff about class… and the entertainment industry… on top of the shenanigans with alligator. As I say, this whole thing is overstuffed with ideas. The fact that Margaret Rutherford gets one scene, an amusing one as it may be, should tell you how much it’s racing through this stuff and how much it’s able to spend on pretty much any of it.

J. Lee Thompson would go on to do better things pretty much immediately, as this was followed up with Yield to the Night (1956), the film that made people briefly notice that Diana Dors could actually act rather than just be the totty; before going on to direct a several well-regarded films in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s… and then, like, thirty odd years of other stuff eventually culminating in a bunch of questionable action films for Cannon mostly starring Charles Bronson. Ah, what a life. As for An Alligator Named Daisy however… well, it can coast decently on charm; there are certainly worse ways to spend an afternoon, and its constant shifting in what it’s trying to do means it never really dwells too much on dead weight, it’s just that the many things it tries to do are never remotely taxing.