Melody (1971)

One of the loveliest films about love and childhood ever made is Melody but it’s a film that definitely goes under the radar. It’s a film that benefits from amazing performances by the three actors at the heart of the story and the music of the Bee Gees including First of May, my favourite song of theirs.

The story concerns first love, in this case between Daniel Latimer and Melody Perkins played by Mark Lester and Tracy Hyde. Lester was already a seasoned performer having played Oliver in the film musical three years earlier. Tracy Hyde, on the other hand, was appearing in her first film. The third young actor at the centre of the story is Jack Wild who plays Ornshaw, a child from a rough background but with no real nastiness to him at all. At the time he was 19 but could still pass for 12 or 13.

It doesn’t get going until Melody herself appears. She is both down to earth and ethereal and her first act is to buy a goldfish in a plastic bag and set it free into a water trough. The writer, Alan Parker, and the producer, David Puttnam, both agreed that the scenes beforehand served no real purpose and the phrase ‘the goldfish moment’ became a shorthand between them for getting to the story straight away.

It’s set in London and the capital in 1971 is such a different place that it becomes a character of its own watching it over 50 years on. There is a scene set in Weymouth but I won’t say any more in case you want to watch it yourself. The school setting is Archbishop Tennyson’s and a number of the pupils appear as extras. It’s a school setting within my lifetime and I can almost remember the sounds and smells, so authentic does it seem.

Here in the UK, Melody has been a somewhat forgotten classic, but it’s a revered film in both Japan and Argentina! If you are in the UK it appears from time to time on Talking Pictures TV and there’s a fantastic blu ray version  from Vintage Classics that I wholeheartedly recommend. So, find somewhere to watch it and settle down in front of one of the loveliest films ever made.