Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter

When the British invasion came along in the 1960s, it was a thing for some of the singers or bands to get involved with narrative movies, although the narrative stories aren't always the most inventive. The Beatles were of course probably the best of the lot with A Hard Day's Night, while the Dave Clark Five made Having a Wild Weekend aka Catch Us If You Can. Herman's Hermits were big for a few years in the 1960s and made Hold On!, but when they had a #1 hit in the US with a song called Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, somebody had the insane idea of making a movie with that title.

Peter Noone, the lead singer of the band, stars as Herman Tulley. He lives in the sort of Victorian-era terraced housing in Manchester that looks like it's ready for slum clearance and was a staple of British-set movies of the era, together with his grandmother. Grandpa died not to long earlier, and bequeathed Herman a greyhound named Mrs. Brown, whom Herman is seen training as the movie opens. To raise money to try to get the dog in a real race, Herman has sold a share in the dog to each of his bandmates.

Herman goes straight from the track to his work at an ad agency where he and one other candidate are up for a promotion although it's the other guy who gets it because Herman bad-mouths the pink hats the company is trying to promote. Herman also loses his job for it. At least he's got a nice young girl named Tulip who loves him. Meanwhile, when Herman goes to the cemetery to water the plants on Grandpa's grave, he meets a tramp who winds up being a running plot point in the movie.

Herman is able to get the money to enter his dog in a stakes race in Manchester, and the dog wins, which means that the dog is good enough to race in London. The only thing is, that's going to require rather more money than just racing the dog in Manchester. At the race-track are the Browns (played by British character actors Stanley Holloway and Mona Washbourne) whom the dog eventually gets named after; they've got a daughter Judy who is hoping to become a model. They live in London so they might be able to help Herman out if he's able to make it to London.

As you might guess, the band do make it to London, while performing several songs over the course of the movie. The intention is, of course, to put the dog into the big race, although there are quite a few complications along the way.

Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter is more of a time capsule than anything else, looking at the UK in the 1960s as somebody wanted to romanticize it. The story here is minimal and one that doesn't really make much sense, while it doesn't help that the band can't act and the tramp character is a bit obnoxious. The songs are dated although some people may like them.