Produced by David Puttnam and Goldcrest Films International in association with Warner Bros. for a budget of £486,000, Mr. Love was written by Kenneth Eastaugh and directed by Roy Battersby. It starred television actor Barry Jackson (Midsomer Murders) in his first lead film role as Donald Lovelace (pronounced "Loveless") a.k.a. "Mr. Love," a balding, middle-aged film projectionist and gardener who is, by all outward appearances, a hen-pecked man. When he dies in a car accident in which he was with a woman who was not his wife, 12 women he had been secretly romancing--including an usherette (Julie Deakin) and a woman who shares his passion for spiders (Helen Cotterill)--show up at his funeral. Lovelace's wife (Marcia Warren) discovers that her mild-mannered husband was really a lothario encouraged to lead a double life by his friend Theo (Maurice Denham). Also in the cast were Margaret Tyzack (best known to American audiences for her role in the 1976 BBC miniseries I, Claudius, Linda Marlowe, Christina Collier and Donal McCann.
Some of the location shooting for Mr. Love was done at the historic Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, North London, which was built in 1910 and opened in 1912. It remains one of the oldest single-screen theaters still in operation in England and has appeared in many television programs and films, including Interview with the Vampire (1994) and My Week with Marilyn (2011). When Mr. Love was filmed there in 1984, the theater was in danger of being pulled down in order to build an office block, but preservationists were able to save it just in time. Barry Jackson enjoyed filming at the theater, but playing a projectionist convincingly was a lot of work and required tutoring. "I was taught by Peter Bailey, the projectionist of 50 years, how to operate the projectors, which in those days were the older arc projectors; that is, you had two carbon rods making a huge light spark, and that generated the electricity to show the film. It was quite complex because you had to make sure the carbons were nearly touching but not touching and then when they were worn out you had to replace them. Quite a difficult job because they were red hot. So I had a lot to learn." According to Jackson, Battersby watched the process of running the projector and then put many of the elements into the film, even though they weren't in the script. The actors also decided to contribute to the plot. "[Deakin] and I decided that there was a chance of some very good scenes so we devised a couple of scenes completely and we introduced them into the film. [...] [T]hey were very good and seemed to work very well so the director added those on to what was already in the script. And that was thanks to Peter. Peter was very patient."
The film was released in the UK in 1985 and eventually made its way to the United States, where it debuted with a PG-13 rating in April 1986. Caryn James, reviewing Mr. Love for The New York Times called it a "routine story" with "some pathos in the lives of these people, to whom both sex and love seem alien, [but] the film is so smug in its distinction between body and heart that it lacks all warmth and charm."
By Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7183fdbc
http://www.goldcrestfilms.com/films/view/distribution/mr-love
The Internet Movie Database
Interview with Barry Jackson, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPBMBSpnnG4
James, Caryn "Film: 'Mr. Love': A Briton's Search in Middle Age" The New York Times 25 Apr 86
