Mrs. Henderson Presents 2005

     This film is based on a book written by Sheila van Damm.  Laura Henderson buys an old London derelict theater and opens it up as the Windmill.  It is a performance hall and it goes down in history for an all-nude review?  Laura is recently widowed, she is wealthy and she is dissatisfied with the lifestyle of her fellow widow friends.  She persuades Vivian Van Damm to run the theater.  This could be a surprise combination because Laura and Vivian don’t get along??  Their idea of a non-strop revue is at first a great success.  But, other theaters copy their style and disaster looms ahead.  Laura suggests they put nudes in the show but Vivian says that Lord Chamberlain, Lord Rowland Baring and 2nd Earl of Cromer will likely have something to say about this?  These gentlemen license live shows in Britain and a go or no go is their decision?  Luckily, Laura has friends in high places!!  

     The actual Windmill was just like you see in this film but a little shabbier.  There were comics and song-and-dance acts plus dancing girls.  The lighting shifted and you could see nude models posed and moving in an artistic tableaux.  When the lighting shifted again, they disappeared.  In 1961 the Windmill was still in business but strip clubs opened up all over Soho and this club became old news.  As expected, a lot of nudity, profanity and adult themes.  3* (I liked this movie)        

103 min, comedy directed by Stephen Frears and written by David and Kathy Rose, Martin Sherman and Sheila van Dammn with Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Will Young, Christopher Guest, Kelly Reilly, Thelma Barlow, Anna Brewster, Rosalind Halstead, Sarah Solemani, Natalia Tena, Tomas Allen, Richard Syms, Ralph Nossek, Camille O’Sullivan, Doraly Rosen, Matthew Hart.

Note:  Imdb 7* out of 15,035 reviews, Roger Ebert 3*, Rotten Tomatoes 67% with 144 critics 72% with 50,196 audience scores, empire online 3* out of 5* Helen O’Hara, Common Sense Media Maria Llull, 4* out of 5*, age 16+, 3* violence, 5* sex, 5* language 3* drinking, drugs & smoking, The Guardian 2* out of 5* Noel Coward.

Special Note:  Dame Judi Dench plays Mrs. Henderson as the character dressed as a dancing polar bear.  There was a party before production started.  Many of the original Windmill girls attended.  They seemed to be older versions of the actresses playing Windmill girls!!  Many scenes such as portraits and the Wild West Show are re-creations from authentic photographs of the Windmill in its heyday.  

Mistakes:  Laura Henderson’s husband died in 1919, she purchased the Palais de Luxe and turned it into the Windmill Theatre in 1931.  She introduced the nude “tableaux vivant” in 1932.  This film depicts all these events as occurring after 1937.  Lord Cromer was Lord Chamberlain from 1922 to 1937 and was retired before the war.  Maureen ends up in a small river or canal during a rainstorm.  She is retrieved but she ever goes back for her bike or her purse?  Wouldn’t a lady go back for her purse?