Pretty Marjorie Clark (Pauline Stroud) – whose parents run the local corner shop – wins a beauty competition in her Midlands town and finds herself in a Festival of Britain procession in Coventry as Lady Godiva (though not in the buff).
Against the wishes of her puritanical old father (Stanley Holloway) and her possessive boyfriend Johnny (George Cole) the impressionable and naive lass enters another beauty contest, and accidentally wins after the organiser attempts to rig the contest in favour of his girlfriend – but she and Marjorie swap gowns.
Marjorie becomes a national celebrity and – for a time – enjoys success as a model, but has less success when she tries to conquer the world of showbiz.
She eventually ends up as a nude Lady Godiva in a seedy flea-pit of a theatre, watched by her outraged parents who have come to see her.
Dennis Price appears as Simon Abbott, a smoothly lecherous matinee idol who tries to get every girl he meets into bed with him and there is an amusing cameo from Alastair Sim as Hawtrey Mewington – an ageing, down-on-his-luck film producer.
Released in the USA as Bikini Baby.
TRIVIA
Joan Collins features as a Beauty Queen contestant in her movie debut. One of the other contestants is a dark-haired Ruth Ellis, later to become infamous as the last woman hanged in Britain for murder.
Marjorie Clark
Pauline Stroud Simon Abbott
Dennis Price Larry Burns
John McCallum Mr Clark
Stanley Holloway Mrs Clark
Gladys Henson Janie
Bernadette O’Farrell Johnny
George Cole Dolores August
Diana Dors Eddie Mooney
Eddie Byrne Sylvia
Kay Kendall Beattie
Renee Houston Lew Beeson
Sidney James Harry
Cyril Chamberlain Vic Kennedy
Lyn Evans Mr Green
Fred Berger Buller
John Harvey Susan
Patricia Goddard Otto Mann
Richard Wattis Lady in Charge of Publicity
Dora Bryan Compere
Tommy Duggan Comic
Eddie Leslie Joe
Michael Ripper Hawtrey Mewington
Alastair Sim Lucille
Charlotte Mitchell Lucille’s husband
Toke Townley Susan Foster
Googie Withers Singer at Dance
Jimmy Young Dorothy Marlowe
Violet Pretty Myrtle Shaw
Dagmar Wynter
Marjorie becomes a national celebrity and – for a time – enjoys success as a model, but has less success when she tries to conquer the world of showbiz.
