Though sumptuous and sophisticated for an English musical of the period (or, let's face it, any period), Evergreen lacks the pizazz and production values of even an average Hollywood product of the Thirties. But what it does have is Jessie Matthews and the charm and sweetness that she had to a degree that elevated these qualities to sensual enchantment. Watch her in the "Dancing on the Ceiling" number, in which she dances up a spiral staircase, into her bedroom, and into bed, and you could swear she decides to hover in the air over the bed for a second, playfully kicking her heels. In "I Wouldn't Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You," which she performs dancing down the length of a dinner table with another actress, in the costumes of the 1890s, can reduce you to tears. The plot has her being given a gala farewell as she is about to leave England, and the feeling of the whole song is of a laughing farewell to an era of innocence.
There was no one in films who moved like Jessie Matthews, unless you count the very, very different Louise Brooks (also a dancer). They moved with a liquid grace that, while full of natural sensuality, was never vulgar or openly sexy, any more than the movements of a beautiful feline. In the final number, "Over My Shoulder," however, she does a strip tease to make it plain that she is not a wonderfully preserved old lady but a young and vital one. It's breathtakingly sexy, but not because Matthews behaves, like later actresses, in a manner deliberately meant to be arousing--rather, because she is just so full of the joy of life.
5 out of 7 found this helpful