Excellent but underrated film

Better Late Then Never

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The Bulldog Breed is a Norman Wisdom vehicle that's directed by Robert Asher & co-written by Wisdom with Henry Blyth & Jack Davies. Plot sees Wisdom as Norman Puckle, a hapless grocer's assistant who is hopelessly in love with Marlene (Penny Morell). When she spurns his offer of marriage he attempts to commit suicide, but he proves to be inept at that as well. Finally settling on jumping off of "Lover's Leap" as a sure fire way to die, he is saved at the last minute by a Naval Officer who seduces him with talk of life as a sailor, where the girls are plenty and life is totally great. Buying into it Norman enrols, but he quickly finds that it's a tough life, that he is hopeless as a sailor and that the commander wants to fly him off into outer space!.The Bulldog Breed comes at a time when Wisdom was most prolific on the big screen, in a 17 year period from 1953 to 1969 Wisdom was the lead star in 15 movies. While during this time he was lending support to a number of ensemble and TV pictures too. It's inevitable that during a busy period such as this that the quality of entertainment will vary, this effort falls some where in the middle on the list of Wisdom's best movies. The formula remains the same as Wisdom plays plays a bumbling but lovable dope who creates carnage where ever he goes. The comedy set pieces are many, with a "man overboard" sequence of events the particular highlight. While it also serves as an interesting snap shot of the times. Where The Bulldog Breed differs from many of Wisdom's most fondly thought of film's is with its darker tones of suicide and sexual suggestion (the latter beautifully brought to life by the sultry Liz Fraser). It's an odd mix of a film, and one that has proved to divide Wisdom purists. Newcomers to his work are most likely better off choosing something else as a starting point to his movie output. 6/10Footnote: The film marks early appearances of Michael Caine and Oliver Reed who share a scene together with Wisdom. While fans of British soap Coronation Street will find value in seeing actors Johnny Briggs and William Roache also appearing in the piece.

In the bulldog breed, Norman is tricked into the navy, after many attempts at committing suicide (which were quite funny!) but as soon as he joins, the navy isn't all gorgeous girls as he was tricked into thinking..... .....instead it's a hard life where Norman gets into all sorts of trouble, getting is fellow Naval men three weeks leave for his hilarious mistakes but they get the three weeks deducted off later on.... ....he has been chosen to be the first man to enter space, but, has to go through some rigorous training, which he fails miserably! Which means that someone else had to be chosen for the expedition.... ...but Norman finds his way onto the Space Craft after chasing a dog and a rabbit onto the rocket (the dog and rabbit escape unharmed) but Norman is left to man a space craft and successfully makes it back to earth, crashing near an island which has a very beautiful girl on it, Norman had to stay on the island for a fews hours, i'm sure he didn't mind!So overall i'd give this film a 6/10 because it didn't have as many laugh out loud moments as any other Norman Wisdom film i've watched, but still very good

I swore I would never watch another Norman Wisdom movie. They are all much the same and any are a waste of time — unless your standards for amusement are dangerously low.In this one, he is tricked into joining the Navy, apparently only because the filmmakers had a deal with a real ship and its crew. Wisdom is again his standard character: part clueless disaster, part earnest innocent. Again you see his errors creating broad slapstick. He pushes men overboard, for instance. Ho hum.The odd thing was how many such movies he made. There must have been a market for such a thing in the UK. There's no redeeming value here.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I didn't think much of THE BULLDOG BREED simply because I don't think much of Norman Wisdom . When you've seen one of his comedies you've basically seen them all . The jokes are corny and predictable and usually revolve around coincidence and misunderstanding . Suppose to were to throw an anchor off a pier what's the chances of a speed boat passing at the same time ? If you threw an anchor of a pier a thousand times I doubt if you'd hit one single boat passing , same as if you threw rubbish overboard from a ship whats the chances that your commanding officer would be berthed alongside ? Yeah I know you're not supposed to think about it but the comedy stretches credibility and shows itself to be unsophisticated There is another problem this movie and that is that it doesn't have a cohesive plot . Think about it , by an unlikely series of events Norman joins the navy but then the location switches to a climbing expedition then later on the story revolves around a journey in to outer space . It's as if the writers had several under developed ideas for a story then not knowing what to do with them tried to piece them together which gives the movie a very episodic feel Despite these criticisms THE BULLDOG BREED remains one of Wisdom's most watchable movies simply because it features so many well known faces from television such as a couple of long running cast members from CORONATION STREET not to mention a couple of uncredited appearances from future film stars Oliver Reed and Michael Caine