Hello London

Hello London is a 1960 colour CinemaScope drama-documentary/promotional musical film directed by Sidney Smith and starring Sonja Henie, Michael Wilding, Ronny Graham and Eunice Gayson.

Sonja Henie arrives in London with her Stars on Ice touring company and after a show is asked to take part in a benefit concert the next evening in aid of the British Orphans Association.

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Why on earth it required three writers to produce this ingenuous concoction of ice spectacle, cabaret, music hall and an itinerary, culminating in a visit to the Battersea Fun Fair, which is nothing if not exhaustive, is something of a mystery.

We must be thankful that the idea was realised with such enthusiasm, resulting in director Sidney Smith's hotchpotch of scenes set on London buses (a cramped location for some ridiculous choreography), in under-populated night-spots, at a gentlemen's outfitter in Savile Row (one of its sales assistants is Welsh tenor Trefor Jones ...), at Battersea's funfair, and in protracted extracts from Ms Henie's ice show of the moment.

The permanently fixed smiles of delight on the faces of Wilding, with none of the charisma that sustained him through his long years as Anna Neagle's on-screen lover, and Gayson, and the dialogue they are obliged to reiterate, remind us that actors must eat and will at times do just about anything for the money.