The Demi-Paradise

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The Demi-Paradise
Directed by	Anthony Asquith
Produced by	Filippo Del Giudice Anatole de Grunwald
Written by	Anatole de Grunwald
Starring	Laurence Olivier Margaret Rutherford
Music by	Nicholas Brodszky
Cinematography	Bernard Knowles
Distributed by	Two Cities Films
Release date(s)	1943
Running time	114 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Demi-Paradise (also known as Adventure for Two) is a 1943 comedy film made by Two Cities Films and distributed in the U.S. by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and produced by Anatole de Grunwald and Filippo Del Giudice from a screenplay by de Grunwald. The music score was by Nicholas Brodszky and the cinematography by Bernard Knowles.

The film starred Laurence Olivier and Penelope Dudley Ward with Leslie Henson, Marjorie Fielding, Margaret Rutherford, Felix Aylmer, Joyce Grenfell, Jack Watling, John Laurie, Miles Malleson, Wilfrid Hyde White and George Cole.

The film is a gentle satire on the values the English hold so dear. It was designed to encourage sympathy between Britain and the Soviet Union. The film's title is a reference to John of Gaunt's famous speech in Richard II which begins:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise

[edit] Plot

Ivan Kouznetsoff (Laurence Olivier) is a Russian inventor in England to promote his new special icebreaker propeller device. He is put off by English customs and manners - or, rather, the lack of them. No one in 1939 England trusts a foreigner, least of all one of those shifty "Reds"; but when Russia and England become allies against the Nazis, he is welcomed with open arms. Ann (Penelope Dudley Ward), his suspicious landlady, ends up falling in love with him.