Haley Mills Still THE FAMILY WAY (1961) Hywel Bennett, Vintage &
Item History & Price
(This looks MUCH better than the picture above. Sorry if you can see my reflection in any of these high gloss & vintage original photographs.) Use BUY-IT-NOW and get FREE domestic FIRST CLASS shipping!Haley Mills mint still THE FAMILY WAY (1961) Hywel Bennett, vintage & original This 8x 10 inch still would look great framed on display in your home theater or to add to your portfolio or scrapbook! Some dealers by my lots (see my other auctions) to break up and sell separately at class...ic film conventions at much higher prices than my low minimum. A worthy investment for gift giving too! PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE ALL PICTURES LOAD After checking out this item please look at my other unique silent motion picture memorabilia and Hollywood film collectibles! COMBINE SHIPPING COST AND SAVE $ See a gallery of pictures of my other auctions HERE! This photograph is an original photo chemical created pictures (vintage, from original Hollywood studio release) and not a copy or reproduction. DESCRIPTION: This gently farcical British comedy stars Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett as Jenny and Arthur, a young couple who have just gotten married. However, while both of them are filled with anticipation for their honeymoon, a practical joke played by their "friends" causes their bed to collapse just as they're about to consummate their relationship. Through a variety of misfortunes, they end up spending the night at the home of Arthur's parents, where nervousness and a certain lack of privacy make it difficult for them to enjoy their first night together as they'd wish. While a bit of frank language and some fleeting nudity by former child star Hayley Mills generated a certain amount of controversy upon first release, by today's standards The Family Way is more easily seen as the compassionate relationship comedy its creators intended. The Family Way is also of note to Beatles fans as the first film scored by Paul McCartney.” CONDITION: This quality vintage and original still is in EXCELLENT condition (minor bumps to the edges), it is has sharp, crisp details and it is not a re-release, not digital or a repro. Nothing is “wrong” with this photograph in any way. It came from the studio to the theater during the year of release and then went into storage where the collector I bought them from kept them for over 45 years! I have recently acquired two huge collections from life long movie buffs who collected for decades… I need to offer these choice items for sale on a first come, first service basis to the highest bidder. SHIPPING:Domestic shipping would be FIRST CLASS and well packed in plastic, with several layers of cardboard support/protection and delivery tracking. International shipping depends on the location, and the package would weigh close to a half a pound with even more extra ridge packing. PAYMENTS: Please pay PayPal! All of my items are unconditionally guaranteed. E-mail me with any questions you may have. This is Larry41, wishing you great movie memories and good luck… BACKGROUND: Considered rather scandalous in its time, particularly for showing former child star Hayley Mills' exposed posterior, The Family Way now seems fairly dated and somewhat artificial, both in subject matter and in treatment. It's also a rather uncomfortable blend of sentimental comedy, knockabout farce, and "kitchen sink" realism; trying too hard to contain all of these elements, it fails to satisfy completely. That said, there's a lot to enjoy in Family, starting with the manner in which director Roy Boulting captures the claustrophobic lives endured by the working-class poor. He appreciates the limitations that these characters must endure because of their economic circumstances, but also appreciates the humor that can arise from these circumstances. And he handles the father-son relationship that is the real crux of the picture with great facility. In her first "adult" role, Hayley Mills is charming and appealing without being cloying. Her newly betrothed, the sensitive Hywel Bennett is a good match for her, and both are good company to spend time with. But it is John Mills, as the bridegroom's father, who dominates the film. Loutish, crude, obstinate, and oppressive, he uses his obnoxious qualities to mask his own fears and inadequacies; it is a marvelous piece of acting from a great actor. As his wife, Marjorie Rhodes also makes a strong impression. If Family is a bit obvious in its lessons, it's still worth seeing for John Mills' excellent work.The daughter of British actor John Mills and playwright Mary Hayley Bell, Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills made her first screen appearance as an infant in 1947's So Well Remembered. It wasn't until a decade later, however, that Hayley Mills made her formal film debut, portraying the preteen murder witness who is nearly destroyed by her connection to the criminal in 1959's Tiger Bay. Playing many scenes alongside her own father, Mills gave an uncannily affecting performance that won her the British Film Academy's Most Promising Newcomer Award. The movie also brought her to the attention of Walt Disney, ever on the lookout for talented child actors. In 1959, Mills entered Disney's orbit, and the producer placed her into the most meticulous and artistic live-action film in his studio's history up to that time: Pollyanna (1960). The movie transformed Mills from a precociously talented juvenile player into a full-fledged star, and earned her a special Academy Award for her performance. Ironically, Pollyanna was somewhat mis-marketed at the time as a film intended principally for younger girls and their mothers -- in actuality, it is a sentimental film whose dramatic content and visual craftsmanship place it closer in spirit to pictures like The Music Man, or even Shenandoah, perfectly suitable for general audiences; as a result, it was never as big a hit in theaters as it should have been, and Mills' biggest success for Disney turned out to be her next feature, The Parent Trap (1961). This movie, about a set of estranged identical twin sisters who conspire to get their divorced parents back together, gave the 15-year-old actress the chance to play two separate characters, with two distinctly different personalities. She was able to convince a major part of the audience that she was two different people (a gambit later picked up by the creators of The Patty Duke Show), and she also hit the pop music charts with a song from the film, called "Let's Get Together." In the years that followed, Mills' output for Disney proved somewhat uneven, The Moon-Spinners (1964) failing to impress critics, while the more dramatically demanding The Chalk Garden (1964), in which she played an emotionally crippled adolescent, was some of her best work, and reunited her onscreen with her father; and she excelled in the drama Whistle Down the Wind (1962), directed by Bryan Forbes and made for Rank, playing a girl who shelters an escaped criminal, who thinks he's Jesus. The advent of the British Invasion in popular music, which imparted an appeal to all things British in America for about two years, helped sustain Mills' popularity, and her final Disney film, That Darn Cat (1965), was a hit and one of her best comedies, though she was outshone (as she might well have been) by old hands like William Demarest. Her first film after leaving the Disney fold was Gypsy Girl (1966), which marked a break from the American producer's tendency toward light comedy -- directed by her father and written by her mother, it presented Mills in the role of a retarded teenager. She was engaged by John and Roy Boulting to star in The Family Way (1966), a comedy about close-quarter familiar relations (best remembered today because of its score, written by Paul McCartney) -- that picture exploded her lingering goody-two-shoes image by offering Mills in a well-publicized nude scene, and what the scene itself didn't accomplish in changing her image, her romance and marriage to director Roy Boulting, some 33 years her senior, did, and the two had a daughter before their divorce in 1976. Mills would also have a lengthy relationship and eventually a son with actor Leigh Lawson.Curtailing her film appearances in the early '70s, Mills devoted most of her time to television productions; in 1986, she came back to the Disney fold with a Parent Trap TV-movie sequel, and she earned a place in the hearts of a new generation with the title role on 1987's Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the TV precursor to Saved by the Bell. Mills would take a break during the 90's, but returned to TV full force in 2007 with a starring role on the series Wild at Heart.Yes, it's true that Welsh actor Hywel Bennett, a bonafide male, made his London stage debut as Ophelia in Hamlet. It's important to note, however, that the production was staged by the Youth Theatre, that it was traditional for men to play female roles in Shakespeare's time, and that, at 15, Bennett's voice hadn't broken yet. Thereafter, he trafficked in "angry young men" parts on stage, and as crafty characters posing as naifs in films. One of his most famous film roles was his first--in 1966's The Family Way, he played the briefly impotent husband of Hayley Mills. He went on to star in the anti-war The Virgin Soldiers (1970) and Percy (1973), in which he played the first recipient of a penis transplant. On British television, Bennett was seen in such weeklies as Where the Buffalo Roams (1967) and Shelley (1985). Incidentally, Hywel Bennett finally got to play the male lead in Hamlet in a 1974 South African production.
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