BFI Video has announced the third release from the its Adelphi Collection for release on February 14:
The Crowded Day / Song of Paris, a vintage double bill of drama and comedy from British director John Guillermin (
Death on the Nile, The Towering Inferno), released for the very first time, in a Dual Format Edition with Blu-ray and DVD discs of both films.
Both films have been digitally restored and with new High Definition transfers taken from the original elements preserved at the BFI National Archive. They are packaged with an illustrated booklet that includes film notes, original promotional materials and new essays by John Guillermin, actresses Prunella Scales and Vera Day, author Mary Cadogan on
The Crowded Day and the 1950s and BFI National Archive Curator Vic Pratt.
The Crowded Day (1954) sees five young women's lives intertwine in a bitter-sweet tale of shop-floor intrigue. Set against the busy backdrop of a department store in post-war London, and with interiors shot at Bourne & Hollingsworth on Oxford Street adding authenticity, this ensemble piece is bustling with familiar faces from the golden era of British cinema.
Song of Paris (1952) is a romantic comedy which sees an archetypal Englishman — suavely played by debonair Dennis Price — return from a jaunt abroad to face a dastardly foreign count in a screwball duel for the hand of a beautiful mademoiselle.