I've been a fan of Frankie Howerd since I was a teen and first saw him in Up Pompeii around 1970. He's pretty camp and I love a camp comedian. Frankie didn't make many movies, a couple of dozen if you include the TV movies, and the most famous might be The Ladykillers with Alex Guinness. Frankie only had a smallish part, he had better bits in The Runaway Bus, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Up The Jungle, The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery and The House On Nightmare Park. The last film is on DVD as part of The British Film series from Network. Not much of his work has filtered into the US. A bit turned up on cable in the 90s and Up Pompeii ran on PBS back in the 80s, since then, not so much. Until the last few years I hadn't seen many of his movies, but an all region player has given me the opportunity to see a lot of what I missed. You can see some of his work on YouTube. There's plenty of material available in the UK.
A Touch Of The Sun is a 1956 film that was written by Alfred Shaughnessy and directed by Gordon Parry. They both worked on a lot of British TV. I've even seen some of their works.
Frankie is the hall porter at an upscale hotel and his knowledge has become very valuable to the hotel. He's helpful to the guests and one of them leaves him £10,000. After a fling on the French Riviera Frankie decides he misses the hub hub of the hotel and the enjoyment of helping people. He comes back to London to find the hotel closed. He buys it with the money he has and tries to get some rich businessmen to invest in the place. The last third of the movie is a mad slapstick dash about the hotel with all the staff playing customers to make the place seen inhabited.
It's pretty much standard fare. It makes some noise and has some gags. Not all the best gags but enough make make me titter. I enjoy Frankie so I'm quite pleased to be watching. Others might not like him. Who knows.
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