Wonderful Movie

Simply A Masterpiece

Don't Believe the Hype

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Charters and Caldicott have been promoted by the film producer to head this comedy.Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford were popular playing these two bumbling characters in several films but I still think their performance in "The Lady Vanishes" 1938 was best and especially in the latter film I liked Basil Radford describing a particularly feliticous piece of play by Wally Hammond which he illustrates with sugar cubes representing the players on the field.I too was annoyed when Dame May Witty asked for the sugar cubes to be handed back to her table in the restaurant car.My summary title may seem a trifle arrogant but one has to remember we had just been through another world war and the nation needed to have something to laugh at in the cinema in the days before widespread TV ownership.Yes the comedy was primitive and producers still relied on old fashioned slapstick humour in the main to entertain the masses.Adequate 6/10

With the right script Nauton Wayne and Basil Radford were as funny as any.Alas this is not one.Much of their comedy came from understatement and so the one truly funny scene in this film is with Diana Dors.Shame they didn't pick her as their secretary.Too much of the time the film is far too farcical and quite frankly the pair are lost.The idea of jewels hidden in a ball had whiskers on it when it was used here,as is the scene set backstage in a theatre when they mess up the performance of everyone.In fact the most entertaining part of that skit is the musical seal.It is a great shame that they were not given much better material to work with.

This spoof on the spy and detective genres is patchy but contains some flashes of humorous inspiration which still appeal more than half a century later. I had about half a dozen genuine belly laughs over the absurd antics of Otto the incompetent spy, Bright and Early the incompetent private detectives and a string of pompous, self-important British stereotypes. There's an awful lot of slapstick in between the occasional clever lines and you'll need to be a bit of a Marx Brothers or Buster Keaton fan to appreciate this minor British comedy to the full. But still a little better than much of what passed for comedy around this time.Oh, and for all you folk in the USA, you'll only need to come to grips with about 60 seconds of actual cricket!