PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Big Job 1965

The Big Job is a 1965 Sid James film. John Antrobus wrote the original story, Talbot Rothwell wrote the screenplay, Gerald Thomas is the director. John started in TV and most of his work is there, he only wrote a small number of films. Talbot also started in TV, he wrote a lot more movies than John, including most of the Carry On series. I've recently picked up his first film, the 1953 comedy Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary, with Diana Dors. Gerald is the director of all the Carry On films. The Big Job is a lot like a Carry On film.

Sid James is George "The Great" Brain, he's a robber who uses the little brain he has to plan the jobs that him and his partners Dick Emery and Lance Percival do. That's Dick, Sid, and Lance in the dock. One of Sid's plans fails and they wind up doing 15 years.

They get out and Sid's girlfriend Sylvia Sims is still waiting for him. She wants Sid to settle down and go straight. The £50,000 that they stole was never recovered. Sid hid it in a tree before he was nicked. Now they find the tree is in the backyard of a police station. There's a big brick wall around the place. Sid gets the bright idea to rent a room in the house across the street. Joan Sims is the lady of the house and Jim Dale is a border. He's a policeman who works across the street. Jim is also the narrator of the US versions of the Harry Potter Sudio Books.

 

The guys try various outlandish plans to get the money but they fail, often with some amount of pain. While that is going on Sid agrees to marry Sylvia. He's not too happy about it. There's some more reluctant romance between Dick and Joan. Jim and Joan's daughter are keen on each other. The guys start to tunnel and while all that's going on the women just go over and get the money. Remarkably it was still sitting in the big hole in the tree after 15 years. Sadly, the money has been ruined by vermin and time. The women start planing their next robbery, they have men to support. I enjoyed it, it's not quite as snappy as a Carry On film but it still made me laugh. I'd put it on again someday.

Taskmaster Series 9

The whole of Taskmaster Series 9 can be found on Dailymotion. They also have all the other episodes.Don't be fooled by the few random episodes of the US version of the show. It wasn't as entertaining and it didn't last.

Of late, it's been the show that I was most excited to see each week. I don't watch it on Dave but someone usually posts it to Dailymotion a few hours after it airs. The series had 10 episodes and plenty of laughs. I enjoy seeing people scrambling to do a task. Especially, if they're out of their depth and make me laugh. This series had Ed Gamble, Jo Brand, Katy Wix, David Baddiel and Rose Matafeo competing. Greg Davies is the host and Alex Horne is his sidekick. Alex is the creator of the show.

Series 1 of Taskmaster showed up on YouTube a few days ago. I mention this because Series 1 Episode 3 isn't on Dailymotion for some reason. The YouTube channel has the whole six episodes and they are nicer looking than the ones on Dailymotion. The only issue is that the YouTube channel has the bleeped versions. The occasional swear word is turned to dead air and the person speaking the swear word has their mouth covered with the Taskmaster seal. Still, the nicer image and sound is an improvement over the copies on Dailymotion. The video and audio is better in the later episodes.

School For Scoundrels 1960

School For Scoundrels is a 1960 British comedy with Alastair Sim, Terry-Thomas and Ian Carmichael. The movie is based on books by Stephen Potter, he wrote The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship: Or the Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating in 1947, it sold well. It teaches one to get the upper hand by manipulating the other person into feeling inferior and gain an advantage over them.

Patricia Moyes and Hal E Chester wrote the screenplay, Robert Hamer is the director, Hal E Chester and Cyril Frankel get uncredited directing credits. Patricia is better known for her Henry Tibbett mysteries. Hal is mostly a producer, he produced a whole series of Joe Palooka films. SF and Horror film fans will know two of his films, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and Curse Of The Demon. Cyril directed a few movies, I had recently see Don't Bother To Knock and On The Fiddle. He directed a whole lot of British TV episodes on shows like The Avengers, The Champions, Department S, Jason King, UFO and many more. Robert directed very few movies but one of them was Kind Hearts And Coronets.

Dennis Potter is a bit of a loser so he enrolls in Alastair Sim's School of Lifemanship. Alastair trains him up as a bit of a prick but Dennis fails in the end. There's a lot of entertaining scenes with Dennis's rival Terry-Thomas. Joining Dennis and Terry-Thomas in the cast are Janette Scott, Peter Jones, Edward Chapman, John Le Mesurier, Hattie Jacques and several people I didn't know. I was happy to watch it and would watch it again sometime.

The Russell Howard Hour Series 3 Episode 1

The Russell Howard Hour starts it's 3rd series, here's episode 1. Russell talks about current news, complains about the treatment of the disabled, interviews some kids about the End Of The World, interviews Ant Middleton, joins Aisling Bea for some bee keeping and promotes a food bank by football fans. 

Here Come The Huggetts 1948

Here Come The Huggetts is the first of three sequels about the Huggett family from Holiday Camp. HCTH came out in 1948 and it was directed by Ken Annakin. He directed Holiday Camp in 1947, the following year he directed Miranda, Broken Journey, The Colonel's Lady segment of Quartet, and HCTH. There were two more Huggett family films in 1949 as well as a movie called Landfall. I've seen Miranda and enjoyed it quite a bit, Glynis Johns is a mermaid, there's a sequel called Mad About Men, it's entertaining but it's not directed by Ken. All four of the Huggetts films are collected in a DVD set in the UK. You can buy one on Amazon for $12.54 with free shipping but you'd need to be able to play region 2 DVDs.

Back to HCTH, the screenplay was written by Mabel Constanduros, Denis Constanduros and Peter Rogers. Muriel Box and Sidney Box are given an uncredited writing credit on the IMDb. Muriel and Sidney were husband and wife film makers, Betty Box was Sidney's sister. At the time of HCTH they were working at Gainsborough Pictures which was part of The Rank Organization. They shot their pictures at Islington Studios and later Lime Grove Studios. When Gainsborough got closed in 1949 the BBC bought Lime Grove and eventually made Doctor Who there.

Jack Warner plays Joe Huggett and Kathleen Harrison plays his wife Ethel. Joe's moved up at the Campbell's cereal company and he's decided they need a phone for work purposes. Kathleen's not too keen but her three daughters are more than happy to have a phone. The Huggetts have three daughters in this series, unlike Holiday Camp in which they had a son and a daughter.

That's the three daughters, left to right are Susan Shaw, Jane Hylton and Petula Clark. When I saw Petula Clark on TV singing Downtown back in 1964, I didn't have any idea she'd been singing for 20 years. She was 16 when she was in HCTH, in the previous four years she'd already sang on BBC Radio and appeared in 8 films.

Jane has a dilemma, her boyfriend has been away at the war and he's coming home with marriage in mind, she's not too sure. Her friend David Tomlinson would like to see her walk up the aisle with him, she's not too sure of him either. There's another wedding in the film, Princess Elizabeth is marrying Prince Phillip, the Huggetts want to go. They camp out overnight near Buckingham Palace to get a good place.

Diana Dors plays the Huggett family's niece, she's pretty much a selfish asshole who can't do much of anything other than coast on her looks. Diana was the youngest student at LAMDA and she would have a fairly lengthy career, starting in 1947 and ending with her death in 1985, she was only 52 years old.

No one's happy to have Diana in the house but her mother is sick so they muddle on. Ethel gets Joe to get Diana a job at the Campbell company and she screws up stuff for Joe. Lucky for him that all works out well in the end. It's a nice easy going comedy with fun characters and a good solid script. I was glad to have seen it and it will be one I will want to watch again.

Folly To The Wise 1952

Folly To The Wise is a 1952 British movie that started off as a 1949 play called It Depends On What You Mean. James Bridie wrote the play, Alastair Sim was the director and leading man. Bridie had worked on three Hitchcock films, The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn and Stage Fright. He died in 1951. The screenplay was written by John Dighton and Frank Launder. It was produced by Sidney Gilliat and directed by Frank Launder.

Alastair Sim is Captain William Paris, he's the Army camp's Chaplin and he's  taken over the role of Entertainments Officer. No one attends the entertainment programs so he decides to put on a Brains Trust type of program. The panel of local characters are to answer questions proposed by the audience. Roland Culver and Elizabeth Allan are a local painter and his wife, Colin Gordon is a professor who appears on the radio, Miles Malleson is a local doctor and Edward Chapman plays the local MP.

There's supposed to be no religion or politics and things start off fairly ordinary. It soon gets heated when comments are made about the MP. The artist and his wife start arguing after a WREN asks about marriage. Things get more noisy after the panel returns from a break, the house is packed after word got around. The same WREN hammers at the panel again, trying to get her question on marriage answered, it gets so out of order that Alastair has to stop the program. There's some more drama between the artist and his wife but things mostly work out and I had a laugh or two. Sadly, there isn't a US DVD for the film, other than bootlegs. I got the 5 film UK set from Studiocanal for relatively cheap and was glad to have it. I watched The Green Man and enjoyed that, three more films to go. Nice to have something to look forward too.

The Extra Day 1956

The Extra Day is a 1956 British comedy set in the film industry. A can of film from the last day of a film shoot is lost on the way to the processors. The Producer gives Richard Basehart the task of rounding up the extras who had worked that day. There are five of them and they've headed off in every direction. William Fairchild wrote and directed the thing and he did a great job. He's put together a great cast. Simone Simon, George Baker, Josephine Griffin, Colin Gordon, Laurence Naismith, Sidney James, Joan Hickson, Shanni Wallis, Bryan Forbes, Eddie Byrne and Patrick Cargill were the ones I knew. Glenda Jackson makes an uncredited appearance as an extra but I didn't notice her. I enjoyed watching all the actors as much as the story. It's a pretty low key story, following Richard as he visits all the extras and arranges for them to come back the next day. They all have an issue that puts a bit of pressure on but it gets worked out for the best in the long run. Not a lot of jokes but the characters provide pleasant company. I was glad to see it and will look at it again someday.

Whodunnit? Series 6

The 6th series of Whodunnit? is the last. The series aired in 1978, it has the most episodes of any series, 12 episodes of the total 48. Jeremy Lloyd and Lance Percival are the creators and writers of the series. I keep running into Lance in some of the old British films I have been watching. Jon Pertwee continues to host the series. It's about like the others, I have my doubts I would want to watch the whole series over again but I might watch random ones that I liked better than others.

The murders have a bit of variety, there's one set in an inn with Blackbeard and his crew, another involves a fortune teller. A robbery and murder at a French casino has Lance playing a goofy cop and a circus owner is killed in another. Paul Darrow was one of the few actors I recognized by name.

They dropped the contest in the Radio Times from last series, the winner would be a guest panelist on the series, the panel is back to being all celebs. As usual I didn't always recognize them. Panelists for this series: Liza Goddard, Diana Coupland, Patrick Mower, Alfred Marks, Joanna Lumley, Bill Maynard, June Whitfield, Mollie Sugden, Roy Plomley, Nerys Hughes, Reginald Bosanquet, Lynsey de Paul, Jenny Hanley, Rodney Bewes, Una Stubbs, Robin Nedwell, Anna Dawson, Anouska Hempel, Jimmy Jewel, Victor Spinetti, Cardew Robinson, Katie Boyle, Magnus Pyle, Ted Moult, Janet Brown, Joyce Blair and David Nixon. Some panelists appeared more than one time in the series.

The Green Man 1956

 

I've been seeking out Alastair Sim movies of late and The Green Man turned up in a box set of his movies from the UK. I had seen it before but not since 1996. It's a 1965 crime comedy with Alastair as a hit man on a mission. The title refers to The Green Man, a seaside hotel, the very place where Alastair plans to off his next target with a bomb. That's Alastair's favorite method of delivering death to his victims. The assignment proves challenging as Alastair finds a steady stream of problems in his path.

George Cole plays a vacuum cleaner salesman who stops in at a house to drum up some business. Jill Adams plays the fiancée of the man who owns the house. She was waiting to meet her fiancée there when George knocked. George finds the body that Alastair's henchman left in the house. Alastair lives next door, the secretary had come to confront him about his plan to blow up her boss. George and Ann think the secretary is dead. She revives to warn them that her boss is to be killed at The Green Man with a bomb, then she passes out or on. Ann and George figure they should go warn the man. They cause chaos in the hotel when they get there.

There's a good cast, I knew Terry-Thomas, Raymond Huntley, Colin Gordon, Richard Wattis, Arthur Lowe, Peter Bull, Willoughby Goddard and Michael Ripper. The ones I didn't know where fine too. Alastair is brilliant in this, drolly going about his deadly business.

There's plenty of mayhem and yelling, even a bomb going off. It's all the work of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, they wrote the original 1937 play The Body Was Well-Nourished. It didn't get on stage until 1940 and it only lasted three weeks because of the Blitz. In 1954 it was re-staged as Meet A Body and it ran 14 weeks. It was produced by Laurence Oliver but he wasn't in it.

 

Launder and Gilliat rewrote it once more for the screenplay and Robert Day and Basil Dearden directed. The IMDb says Sim had some arguments with first time director Day and Dearden stepped in to direct some scenes, as did Gilliat and Launder. No matter, the finished product was fun to watch and it will be one that I would watch again.

What A Carve Up! 1961

What A Carve Up! is the second movie with Esma Cannon I've seen in two days. Oddly enough, that sort of coincidence does seem to happen fairly often. It came out in 1961 and it was retitled No Place Like Homicide! for American theaters.

I was interested in it because it stars Sidney James and Kenneth Connor. I'm a fan of both these guys, Sid from all the TV shows I saw him in when I was a kid and Kenneth from all the Carry On films. Esma turns up in a few of the Carry On series as does her What A Carve Up! co-star Shirley Eaton.

The movie is an adaptation of the Frank King novel The Ghoul. There's a 1933 film adaptation with Boris Karloff. Robert S Baker and Monty Berman are the producers of the current adaptation. I mostly associate them with the 1960s series The Saint. The screenplay is by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton, the director is Pat Jackson. Ray has a good number of writing credits but I haven't seen much of his work, Tony has less to see and I've seen even less than that. Pay directed a few shorts and a few features but none are familiar. I have seen the episodes of The Saint, The Prisoner, Secret Agent, The Famous Five and Man In A Suitcase he has directed.

Kenneth and Sidney share a flat, Kenneth is nervous sort, Sidney his more gregarious friend. Kenneth gets a visit from a lawyer played by Donald Pleasence, who requests his presence at the reading of the will of his late Uncle. Kenneth asks Sid along for moral support and they travel to the family estate in the moors of Yorkshire.

There are several people at the house, Shirley is a nurse, Dennis Price is a cousin, Michael Gough is the butler and Esma is the crazy old grandma who believes it's still WWI. After that I wasn't sure I knew any other cast members other than Timothy Bateson, he's got a small part as a porter, and Michael Gwynn, I thought he looked familiar. I looked him up. Sure enough, he played Lord Melbury in an episode of Fawlty Towers. 

There's plenty of yelling and activity as the members of the family get picked off after the will was read. The big old mansion is filled with secret passages, bodies keep disappearing, who can you trust. It's pretty low key but I got a few laughs. You can see a rather fuzzy copy on YouTube. There's a US DVD from Sinister that gets complaints about the video quality on Amazon, some say it's VHS tape quality. I got a British Anchor Bay DVD from someone on eBay and it looks alright. It helps it's B&W. I doubt there would be a better edition out but who knows. I'll be happy enough to check out the DVD I have again someday.