Comedy – The Magnificent 60s

The Pink Panther (1964) ***

You would have to be a fan of farce and slapstick to appreciate much of the debut of the celebrated Pink Panther franchise. I enjoy slapstick, though this is limited here to mishaps with items of furniture, but farce tends to pass me by (although I laughed myself silly at One Man, Two Guv’nors on stage). And you should be aware that this is really a dry run for the Clouseau character later hilariously perfected by Peter Sellers.

The premise is clever. Bumbling detective Clouseau (Peters Sellers, minus the pronounced French accent that appeared later) is on the trail of ace cat burglar The Phantom (David Niven), unaware that his wife Simone (Capucine) is not only in cahoots with the jewel thief but his lover. The trail leads to Switzerland where the robber plans to steal the titular diamond owned by The Princess (Claudia Cardinale). The Phantom, aka Sir Charles Lytton, attempts to get to know her better by stealing and then rescuing her dog.

Meanwhile, to add to the confusion, Lytton’s conman nephew George (Robert Wagner) has arrived in town, and soon attempts to purloin his uncle’s mistress and on realising Lytton’s true identity stals his equipment with the intention of turning thief himself.

Lytton has the tendency to take a suite adjoining the Clouseau bedroom complete with linking doors to make it easier to make hay with Simone while the complaisant detective is lured elsewhere.

Cue a series of bedroom farces of the kind where Lytton attempting to make love to a drunken Princess in the lounge of his suite does not realise his nephew is in the bedroom and Simone expecting the uncle and finding the junior. And the classic of Simone, pursued by both men in her own room, having to hide them, on her husband’s return, in bed, cupboard, shower and bath.

There’s a fancy dress party where competing gorillas target the famed jewel and Clouseau, clunking around in armour, knocks into or knocks down anything in sight. And finding one of his men, dressed as a zebra, drinking on duty, harangues him with the threat of having his stripes (best joke by far).

But the bulk of the laugh out loud comedy originates from the inspector’s tussles with inanimate objects, doors, even approached cautiously, appearing to be capable of springing surprises.

*The original cast – Ava Gardner in the Capucine role and Peter Ustinov as Clouseau.*

Unfortunately, the first Pink Panther outing was not designed with Sellers expressly in mind and so the plot, necessitating accommodating the other stars via romantic interlude, does not play to his strengths. You get the impression of Sellers improvising his way into stealing every scene he is in with his brilliant physical comedy as there’s only limited value in his role as the duped husband.

After the sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964) where Sellers took center stage Blake Edwards would go all-out slapstick in his next venture The Great Race (1965) but here there’s neither sufficient Keatonesque or Chaplinesque buffoonery or Laurel and Hardy antics to maintain the comedic momentum.

David Niven (Bedtime Story, 1964) is perfectly serviceable as the master criminal especially as it calls mostly for his legendary charm, though he brings his double take quickly up to speed. Claudia Cardinale (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968) is surprisingly good in a light-hearted role while Robert Wagner (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968), a rising star at this point, comes over as slippery ingenue. Capucine (The 7^th Dawn, 1964) has the most difficult part since she is in effect playing two roles, faithful wife and wanton lover.

Despite priceless roles in Ealing comedies and various attempts to embrace the Hollywood dynamic, this was the picture that turned Peter Sellers (Heavens Above!, 1963) into a bona fide star. It says a lot for the director that, having found a comedy genius on his hands, he did his best to accommodate him without allowing him to over-dominate what was in effect a carefully-orchestrated piece.

In small roles you will find John Le Mesurier (The Liquidator, 1965) and Brenda de Banzie (A Matter of Innocence, 1967) and the chanteuse in the ski chalet you might be interested to know was Fran Jeffries (Sex and the Single Girl, 1964). And of course the memorable theme tune, as celebrated as the movie itself, was composed by Henry Mancini (Hatari!, 1962). The film also spawned the famous cartoon series. Edwards wrote the screenplay with Maurice Richlin (Pillow Talk, 1959).

You could do worse than splurge on a five-disc box set.

The Grass Is Greener (1960) ***

A genuine all-star cast goes off-piste in what used to be called – and maybe still is – a comedy of manners. A chance encounters at the stately home owned by Victor (Cary Grant), an Earl who makes ends meet by opening up his home to tourists, sees his wife Lady Hilary (Deborah Kerr), who helps make ends meet by selling home-grown mushrooms, fall in love with American oil millionaire Charles (Robert Mitchum).

Victor is far too English and posh to go off in the deep end and after considering allowing her to indulge in an affair until she gets bored, comes up with a strategy to ensure it’s her lover who is shooed away. Hilary’s best friend, the glamorous and often barmy Hattie (Jean Simmons), all Dior outfits and full-on make-up, meanwhile, steps in to attempt to rekindle her romance with former lover Charles.

*Needless to say, this scene does not exist in the film.*

While it’s peppered with epigrams and clever lines and several twists, what’s most memorable is the acting, the initial scene between Charles and Hilary a masterpiece of nuance, what’s shown in the face opposite to what they say. And there’s another peach of a scene where the most important element is what’s conveyed by a sigh. And by Robert Mitchum of all people, an actor not known for nuance.

But it’s let down by the staginess – it was based on a hit play – the very dated by now notion of showing the comic differences between British and Americans and the pacing. The theatrical element, thankfully, doesn’t resort to farce but with a whole bunch of entrances at unexpected moments you occasionally feel it’s heading in that direction. There are minor attempts to open up the play, a scene in the river, some location work in London and upmarket tourist haunts, but mostly it’s a picture that takes place on a couple of sets.

The British vs American trope just becomes tiresome after a while except that essentially the two men trade cultures, Victor exhibiting the kind of ruthlessness you might expect (in the old cliched fashion) from an American while Charles displays the kind of subtlety you would more likely find in an Englishman.

The pacing’s the biggest problem. The actors deliver lines at such speed that no time is allowed for the audience to laugh. The three British characters are almost manic in their urgency, while the Yank so laid-back he might belong to a different century.

Late on, a couple of subplots brighten up proceedings, a joke played on Hilary by Victor over the contents of a suitcase that she has devised an elaborate cover story to explain, and a betrayal of Hilary by her friend. Devilishly clever though it is, the duel scene almost belongs to a different picture. There’s also an amusing butler Sellers (Moray Watson), a wannabe writer, who believes, as is obvious, he is being under-employed, and pops up when the movie requires straightforward comic relief.

It starts off, via the Maurice Binder (Goldfinger, 1964) credits with babies, occasionally in the buff, unspooling film and indulging in other humorous activities. The only characters established before the plot kicks in are the Earl and the butler, Victor shown as tight-fisted, literally counting the pennies (although, literally, these are actually half-crowns, the price of admission to the stately home), the efficient Sellers revealed as otherwise baffled by life. The joke of a wealthy couple forced to rely on the income from visitors was not even much of a joke by then.

Perhaps what’s most interesting is that this movie essentially about immorality failed to click with U.S. audiences while an equally immoral picture The Apartment (1960) did superb business, the difference less relating to star quality than directorial ability, Billy Wilder’s work always having a greater edge than the confections of Stanley Donen.

It’s the supporting cast – if stars can be so termed – who steal the show. Robert Mitchum (Man in the Middle/The Winston Affair, 1964) is just marvelous, one of his best acting jobs, relying far more on expression to carry a scene. He delivers a masterclass in how little an actor needs to do. Jean Simmons (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) is also excellent for the opposite reason, an over-the-top mad-as-a-hatter conniving ex-lover with an eye on the main chance. That’s not to say Cary Grant (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966) and Deborah Kerr (The Arrangement, 1969) are not good, just overshadowed, and Kerr’s first scene with Mitchum, where she, too, realizes she is falling instantly in love is remarkably underplayed.

Stanley Donen (Arabesque, 1966) should have done more, pre-filming, to tighten up the script and expand the production. Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner adapted their own play. It’s entertaining enough but I was more taken by the acting than the picture.

On the Fiddle / Operation Snafu (1961) ***

Unassuming but undeniably charming British World War Two comedy denied U.S. release until four years later when a savvy distributor jumped on the James Bond bandwagon. Primarily of interest these days for the opportunity to see a pre-Bond Sean Connery (Dr No, 1962) in action its merit chiefly lies in ploughing the same furrow, though with a great deal less pomposity and self-consciousness, as the later The Americanization of Emily (1964), of the coward backing into heroism.

Horace Pope (Alfred Lynch) is a scam merchant who only dodges prison by enlisting. Assigned to the RAF he teams up with Pedlar Pascoe (Sean Connery) and they embark on a series of schemes designed to keep them as far away from the front line as possible. It’s hardly an equal partnership, Pope dreams up the fiddles while Pascoe just falls in with them. It’s not dumb and dumber but a collaboration that goes no further back in the annals of movies than brain and brawn.

*Needless to say, the movie lacks the the damsels in bikinis which were a prerequisite of the Bond pictures. Sean Connery takes top billing Stateside where he was originally behind Lynch.*

It’s certainly a cynical number, reflecting the boredom experienced by many of the Armed Forces backroom staff, the administrators whose inefficiency turns them into easy dupes, and the determination of soldiers to take advantage of every opportunity to bend the rules. It takes the unusual position of presenting the ordinary soldier as smart and every officer as a numbskull, an approach that would only have been possible 15 years after the war ended and in marked contrast to the determined heroism of other British war films – such intrepid stiff-upper-lip behavior a hallmark of the British version of the genre.

First stop is to run an operation issuing leave passes – for a price – and the sheer effrontery exhibited by Pope is a joy to behold. Next up is selling stolen meat on the black market.

While Pedlar is the wide-eyed camp follower, and more likely to forever sit on the sidelines, cheerful but shy, and only a few pratfalls away from being a bumbling idiot, they do make a good team. Being sent to France is more of a heaven-sent opportunity to increase their bankrolls than a hazardous wartime mission as Pope sells rations to the French. Eventually, of course, their various scams are rumbled and they are forced into battle.

*The only thing better than one pre-Bond Connery picture is two.*

The movie switches a bit more deftly into serious mode than the aforementioned The Americanization of Emily mostly because these are actual soldiers trained to be soldiers rather than an officer who landed a cushy number and whose main effort is to avoid combat. War is presented as horrific rather than comedy and it must have been the same experience for an ordinary soldier at the time, after months of inactivity suddenly thrust into the cauldron.

The picture moves at a brisk pace and is continually amusing if not particularly laugh-out-loud. You’ve probably seen most of the set-ups before but they are reinvented with an appealing freshness and briskness As a bonus there’s reams of British character actors and comedians – plus token American Alan King (who would appear in Connery starrer The Anderson Tapes, 1971) – along the way. The term “snafu” in case you’re interested, has a similar meaning to the “fubar” of Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Alfred Lynch (The Hill, 1965) doesn’t milk the Cockney patter overmuch and he’s got a greater international screen appeal than the likes of the more English Sid James (Carry On films) or Norman Wisdom. Think a shiftier Sgt Bilko, if the Phil Silvers creation could be any more untrustworthy.

Connery’s performance is well worth a watch as a prelude to what was to come once his roles were tailor-made. He is an effortless scene-stealer, gifted in expressing emotion through his eyes, and although verbally Lynch dominates it’s difficult to take your eyes off Connery.

The roll-call of character actors includes Cecil Parker (A Study in Terror, 1965), Stanley Holloway (My Fair Lady, 1964), John Le Mesurier (The Moon-Spinners, 1964), Graham Stark (The Wrong Box, 1966) and Victor Maddern (The Lost Continent, 1968).

Cyril Frankel (The Trygon Factor, 1966) comfortably cobbles this together from a screenplay by Harold Buchman (The Lawyer, 1970, and who had ironically enough penned the picture Snafu in 1945) based on the novel Stop at a Winner by R.F. Delderfield.

When the box office supremacy of the Bond pictures was underscored by the reissue of the Dr No/From Russia with Love double bill in 1965, distributors, as had been their wont, racked the vaults for anything featuring Connery that could be re-sold to a willing public.

While there is a readily available DVD, this turns up on a regular basis, in Britain at least, on television.

Digger (2026) * – Seen at the Cinema

This year’s Anora. Makes a heavy-handed Trump-sized point. Then makes it again. And again. And again. Until we’re reeling from a mega-budgeted bout of virtue signalling. Vanity project thy name is Digger. A couple of cinematic body swerves halfway in and, more potently, at the end can’t save this. And neither will streaming which occasionally digs a calamity out of its financial hole. Small-screen audiences are going to switch off in droves just as cinemagoers avoided it like the plague (I was the only person in my early evening screening on Monday).

We’re in standard disaster movie territory without any of the special effects, tidal waves, tsunamis etc which would normally account for the budget. Instead, it’s gone the other way, and more or less stuck us in endless rooms with the kind of politicians and money men scientists try to avoid like the plague.

It plays more like a bedroom farce without the sex, doors constantly opening and closing, people tripping over props (in this case a shovel) until you realize in what the director clearly thinks is a coup de theatre that it actually is a play, which partly explains the ultra-hammy performances, as if only the only idiots in power are shouty-shouty bombastic ones. So this is a play, that in itself given the staging and the huge cast, must have cost millions to put on, that concerns what happened years ago when billionaire oil magnate Digger (Tom Cruise) dug so deep into the Arctic ice shelf that he loosened an iceberg big enough to drift down into the North Sea and swamp most of Europe with, as we discover at the very end, global cataclysm.

In the “reality” part he’s obsessed with his cat, his oil, his billions and not taking the rap for exploitative exploration. In the play, Rockwell (Tom Cruise) playing Digger is obsessed with his daughter who has gone missing and with his understandable actor’s insecurity, constantly at war with the director. The ending, which is the best part, and not because this long trudge of a heavy-handed never-ending saga, is over has the audience don gas marks and emerge from the theater into a swamped city.

Tom Cruise has been here before, when he wanted to prove he was an “actor” and not just an action hero. Remember Lions for Lambs (2007), his first independent production, which targeted the U.S. Government’s involvement in Middle East wars and despite Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep sank like a stone because, guess what, audience don’t like to be lectured.

Guess what, audiences don’t like to be lectured to any more now. The interesting aspect is that audiences sniffed the wind well before this movie opened. Even suggestions in the media that Cruise was odds-on for an Oscar couldn’t tempt them in over the opening weekend. Had Warner Bros not already been taken over by Paramount Skydance, this is the kind of box office opening that could have sunk it, much as Michael Cimino’s misjudged western Heaven’s Gate (1980) did to United Artists.

So, yes, I can see this is making a point about eco threat and a plea not to allow the greed of nations and individuals to create catastrophe, but it’s not as if this is anything new. When Dr Strangelove (1964) warned about the dangers of nuclear warheads it had a lot more laffs. This might have passed muster had it been populated with great jokes and laugh-out-loud lines but the jokes you can coming a mile off and the stagey playing kills off any chance the lines have of creating a laugh.

I’m not even sure why Tom Cruise had to put on a fat suit to play Digger, as if all rich megalomaniacs are fat. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, paper thin the pair of them. Perhaps Cruise wanted to disguise the fact that he is, in fact, an old man. He’s 64 for goodness sake. The hairpiece and the kooky clothing would have done it.

So, sorry, this didn’t do it for me. I already knew this stuff and didn’t need someone spending $160 million to tell me.

The Nutty Professor (1963) ****

Not many, outside of France, fell in with the notion that Jerry Lewis was some kind of cinematic genius. But this was the era of the auteur and the French revered the idea of a creative being in complete control and of placing a distinct imprint on their work. Given Jerry Lewis (The Bellboy, 1960) was not only star, but director, producer and co-writer you could see how neatly he ticked this box.

There are precious few actors turning to direction show any great aptitude for that particular skill. And while Lewis isn’t waiting days for the perfect ray of sunshine or tormenting his actors by insisting on endless takes, Lewis the director does know what makes Lewis the actor work. And it shows.

While this depends largely on sight gags, some quite brilliant, what really makes it tick are the twists, the kind of plot devices that so shift audience perception that they wouldn’t be out of place in a thriller. The concept certainly plays around the with audience, taking it on quite a wild ride.

White, initially, it looks like it’s going to be a weak parody of the awkward nerd, in this case Professor Kelp (Jerry Lewis), getting the sweet-natured girl, in this case student Stella (Stella Stevens), it quickly switches into a more contemporary issue, the question of identity, and deeper still, in an era these days of too much self-reflection being bad for you, of learning to like yourself.

When Kelp is humiliated by a football jock in his own class, he determines to get revenge. When the obvious course of action of body-building doesn’t work, the scientist resorts to science, devising a concoction that will change his personally. The first twist is you are left thinking he’s going to turn into a werewolf. So when he turns up, instead, as an arrogant punk-cum-pop-star with girls swooning all around him, and the kind of tough guy patter that James Cagney would envy, all bets are off.

The entrance of the new-look Kelp is brilliantly done, firstly the camera doing a POV number and registering public reaction to the new Kelp, who we are led to believe, is the said werewolf. So when he saunters into a nightclub dressed to the nines, a smoke in his hands, you can ee why he has attracted such a reaction.

Stella is the kind of sweet girl who is attracted to a tough-talking punk very much against her wishes. Kelp is born again as Buddy Love with plenty lip to exert his authority as the alpha male and a swagger that gets him out of any situation, even one where, a la Cinderella, the potion wears off and he has to abandon Stella in the middle of the night just as romance beckoned.

As if Lewis has seen too many Dr Jekyll pictures, he doesn’t take the visual approach to show the spell is wearing off. Instead, it’s verbal. Kelp’s tough-guy voice reverts to the timid professor’s original whine. Of course, you know the brew is going to wear off from the changes in his voice. And you know crisis is coming. But instead of resorting to slapstick to make the most of the situation, Love/Kelp turns philosopher, owning up to his scam, explaining that he wanted to be someone other than a weak nerd. And while confession is always in movie terms a good way to get a flawed hero out of a jam, this takes a more interesting route, expounding on the need to be true to your own personality, learning to like yourself and not get lost in a mess of self-inflicted anxiety.

There’s a lot less slapstick than I expected, much more in the way of visual gags: Kelp almost disappearing into a lounge seat, the unexpected knock coming from the floor where Kelp has been buried under a door, the squeak that still occurs when the squeaky shoes have been removed, laden down with an armful of books Kelp dumps them into a car loaded with books. It’s as though director Lewis is one step ahead of the audience.

You think Stella Stevens (The Mad Room, 1969) is just there as eye candy until she’s called upon to act with her eyes, bringing emotion to the screen.

Jerry Lewis at the top of his game. I caught this on Amazon Prime.

The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) ***

Don Knotts (The Incredible Mr Limpet, 1964) was an acquired taste, relying overmuch on permafrozen goggle eyes and physical comedy. Despite the best efforts of The Great Race (1965) and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and the reissues of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy classics – perhaps because of this surfeit of slapstick – it would take a very special comedian to make as big an impression.

Bob Hope had gone down the cowardly cowboy route before in The Paleface (1948) and Son of Paleface (1952) and in fact this is pretty much a remake of The Paleface, substituting newcomer Barbara Rhoades (Don’t Just Stand There, 1968) in her sophomore outing as “Bad Penny” Penelope instead of Jane Russell as the more famous Calamity Jane. So it’s not a comparison a comedian would generally welcome – to be matched up against Bob Hope.

What distinguished Hope’s coward was that he always believed he was catnip to the ladies. Don Knotts was under no such illusions.

The story just reruns The Paleface – mild-mannered dentist Jesse Heywood (Don Knotts) is teamed up with sharpshooting criminal Penelope (Barbara Rhoades) to winkle out villains smuggling guns to Native Americans. The twist is that as part of the woman’s cover she’s been married off to the hapless dentist – for the simple reason that wagons trains won’t accept single women. Needless to say, their expectations of marriage differ.

While she manages to avoid intimacy, Jesse becomes acclaimed as a hero during a Native American attack, oblivious to the fact that it’s his wife who’s been doing all the shooting. That singles out Jesse as the undercover agent but he’s again saved by Penelope.

Eventually, he learns the truth but not in time to save Penelope who’s been kidnapped by the Rev Zachary Gant (Don “Red” Barry) and his sidekick Matthew Basch (Jackie Coogan) who have been smuggling weapons inside boxes of Bibles. When Jesse goes to the rescue it’s on the assumption Penelope’s marksmanship will save the day. However, she’s whisked out of the way and Jesse is forced to do his own gunfighting.

Even so, it’s not his skills with a gun that retrieve the situation, rather his dentistry, as he fixes the teeth of the Native American chief.

This relies far more on set pieces than the Bob Hope effort. Hope was able to draw the cinema audience towards him, a skill which Knotts lacks, so the humor results from the more obvious. However, there are a few scenes that don’t rely on Knotts. In one it’s the background character of a railway porter laden down with bags who snags the laffs.

Fear is a Knotts trope. During a stagecoach robbery he literally goes stiff with fear and has to be carried stiff as a piece of wood back into the stagecoach. Absent-minded, goofy, way out of his depth and not just with women, is the comedian’s schtick. Even when he develops a swagger following his deluded belief that he’s a six-gun ace, it’s the dumbest swagger ever.

Luckily, nobody’s trying to steal the scenes. The rest of the cast is drawn from more serious timber. You might be more pleased to see veteran Jackie Coogan (A Fine Madness, 1966), one-time child star, and B-western icon Don “Red” Barry (Alvarez Kelly, 1966) in more than their usual bit parts and to catch Pat Morita (The Karate Kid, 1984) in his sophomore venture.

Unfortunately, neither Knotts not Barbara Rhoades can come close to their predecessors.

Directed by Alan Rafkin – who had directed Knotts in The Ghost and Mr Chicken (1965) – from a screenplay by the team of Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum (The Ghost and Mr Chicken) based on The Paleface written by Frank Tashlin (Caprice, 1967) and Edward Hartmann (The Sword of Ali Baba, 1965).

I’d been very much aware of Don Knotts as I moseyed around 1960s cinema but, fearing disappointment, had steered clear. This will suffice, I think.

Easy on the eye as long as you keep your comparisons to yourself.

Heavens Above! (1963) ***

Surprisingly topical – food banks a key element – social satire. And a surprising box office smash – among the top 12 films of the year – in Britain, although the Boulting Brothers (I’m Alright Jack, 1959), often viewed as inheriting the Ealing mantle, had both commercial and critical form.

In a case of mistaken identity, simplistic prison chaplain Rev Smallwood (Peter Sellers) is sent to rich parish Orbiston Parva, virtually endowed by the Delpard family, owners of the Tranquillax business nearby. Smallwood, an advocate of the meek inheriting the earth and making it his mission to ensure the rich can enter the kingdom of Heaven other than through a needle, convinces Lady Delpard (Isabel Jeans) to spread her wealth. This takes the form of the Good Neighbour Fellowship, whereby she sets up a food bank whose popularity soon endangers the town’s retailers and merchants, the public, naturally enough, preferring to do their shopping at the free church outlet than spend money on a butcher or baker (possibly candlestick makers escaped the impact).

Meanwhile, to show he is up to scratch in the poverty ranks, Smallwood invites into his palatial manse the Smith family who are being evicted from their plot of ground to make way for an expansion of the Tranquillax factory. Despite ruffling feathers in the ministry, Smallwood can’t be turfed out, since religious law dictates he effectively owns the manse. However, once shops have to close for lack of trade and factories, for lack of goods being sold, make thousands redundant, Smallwood’s do-gooding backfires.

While Harry Smith (Eric Sykes) is an archetypal welfare swindler (taking home £90 a week) and inclined to siphon off items from the food bank for his own entrepreneurial purposes as well as stealing lead from the church roof, the rest of his enormous brood, led by the redoubtable Rene (Irene Handl) are converted to the joys of Christianity, enough so much so that baptism and marriage (between the couple) beckon.

Most of the humour is gentle, the biggest laughs – Smallwood inadvertently eating dog biscuits, a dog peeing on his leg, choirboy reading a dirty book, the butler initiating a miraculous intervention – are straight out of the Charlie Chaplin joke book. And the timing for many lines appears out of kilter, as though the laughs were not intended.

*British films around this time often received rave reviews from U.S. critics which ensured reasonable business at the arthouses while not striking a box office chord with the general public. there.*

Apart from Smallwood, his assistant Matthew (Brock Peters) and the converted Lady Despard you are hard put to find any Chistians. As one character observes “not enough decent Christians to feed one lion.” And the townspeople are generally shown as scroungers of one kind of another with the Smiths typical sex-obsessed chip-guzzling working class. The business owners, bishops, aristocrats and assorted politicians are similarly pilloried for greed and inefficiency so you could say the Boultings are being fair straight down the line.

The best scene, and the one that makes the most out of a comic situation, is when the real Rev Smallwood (Ian Camrichael) turns up, is treated as an imposter and locked up for displaying psychotic tendencies. And there’s a clever, even more topical ending, involving space exploration, which equally cleverly mimics an earlier scene. Actually, there are two scenes that echo earlier activities, and both are intelligently used.

The satire retains some of its bite. There are even more rich people around now who hold onto their wealth and there are more poor people in clear need of help, assistance that would extend far beyond food banks, a relatively recent phenomenon. You can be sure selfish big business will be as self-interested.

Peter Sellers, complete with regional accent, in pre-Pink Panther mode shows dramatic skills that he would rarely be allowed to exhibit until much later in his career and although I think he should have been permitted more leeway in his lines he doesn’t deliver them as though he is milking a joke which means dramatic intent is not diluted. He is perfectly believable as the quietly-spoken forgiving vicar surrounded by more grasping colleagues who appear to have forgotten the basics of Christianity, his immediate boss, for example, on holiday in Monte Carlo.

British television comedian Eric Sykes (The Liquidator, 1965), barely recognisable after abandoning his trademark stance and voice, is the standout as the conniver-in-chief. Brock Peters (The Pawnbroker, 1964) is effective as the bin lorry driving protégé and Isabel Jeans (A Breath of Scandal, 1960) a delight as Smallwood’s slightly dotty benefactor – her look as she realizes he has scoffed the dog biscuits worth a couple of laughs. The others, good as they are, are called upon to play little more than stock characters: Cecil Parker (The Comedy Man, 1964), Ian Carmichael (The Amorous Mr Prawn, 1962) and Irene Handl (The Wrong Box, 1966). Look out for Roy Kinnear (Lock Up Your Daughters!, 1969), the first Doctor Who William Hartnell and the future Miss Marple Joan Hickson.

Ably directed by Roy and John Boulting who easily hit all their targets, the screenplay is by Frank Harvey (I’m Alright, Jack), John Boulting and critic Malcolm Muggeridge.

Hotel Paradiso (1966) ****

Few stars made such a deft job of switching their screen persona. If, in the 1960s (or later) you associated Alec Guinness with dramas such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or Doctor Zhivago (1965) and were very familiar with that droll drawl of a voice, you would be astonished the discover that he could wear a comedy hat – minus the droll drawl – to similar effect. My first surprise here was that this Alec Guinness was vocally unrecognizable. Not only was he charming but had a romantic streak.

Then you’ve got Gina Lollobrigida who could also mix drama (Woman of Straw, 1964) with comedy (Come September, 1961) but who could also hold back her screen persona, limiting the zest and eliminating the coquettishness.

And for good measure, what’s director Peter Glenville doing here? Seven out of the eight movies he helmed were dramas and heavyweight ones at that in the vein of Becket (1964) and The Comedians (1967), top-heavy with stars of the caliber of Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. You wouldn’t have him down for a comedy, let alone a French farce. But Glenville had translated the 1894 Georges Feydeau farce for the London West End stage in 1956 – it also reached Broadway – and the production he directed starred Guinness (Bert Lahr on Broadway).

I’m generally immune to farce. Either the characters are idiots or the action is idiotic. Here the two main characters, Marcele (Gina Lollobrigida) and Benedict (Alec Guinness), in the same predicament, attract audience sympathy. Both are married to domineering partners and would just like a bit of fun, so ;plan to spend time in the titular hotel where rooms are rented by the hour. But they are equals, it’s not like Benedict is a fawning numbskull being run rings round by a haughty Marcele.

In the hands of a master farceur like Feydeau the plot, such as it is, works like a dream. The plot of course is to get a number of people into the same building and find reasons for them to want to avoid each other. Usually, such avoidance is triggered by sexual malfeasance.

So the last people the tentative lovers expect to run into (and have to avoid) is Marcele’s husband Henri (Robert Morley) – there on business, he’s a drain specialist – or Benedict’s friend Martin (Douglas Byng) with four daughters in tow, or, for that matter, Marcele’s forward maid Victoire (Ann Beach) there for an assignation with Henri’s nephew Maxime (Derek Fowlds), who, of course, equally fear discovery.

Adding to the ensuring chaos are an incompetent bellboy and an unwelcome police inspector (Leonard Rossiter). One of the joys of this piece is the polish of the plotting. It’s not dependent so much on the obvious avoidance techniques, but on other more tangible elements such as hot water bottles, chairs, tea, hats, and ghosts (the hotel is believed to be haunted). Many of the best laffs are based purely on character. Henri is so arrogant that, ending up in the wrong room, he assumes it’s the result of a thief that his usual items have gone missing and that the thief is so dumb that he’s left his hair on a hairbrush. There’s an in-joke in just watching the usually immoveable object that constitutes Robert Morley being forced to run at a pace.

There’s even a contemporary element – someone present commenting on proceedings – who turns out to be Georges Feydeau himself whose observations of the human frailties on show provide him with the makings of a hit play.

Stepping outside their usual screen personas, Guinness and Lollobrigida spark so well off each other it’s a surprise no one thought to team them again. Robert Morley (Topkapi, 1964) is, as always, pure comedy gold.

It’s a wonder, too, that Peter Glenville didn’t follow up with another movie comedy. There’s more inventiveness and visual dexterity here than in anything else he directed. You always had the impression in his dramas that he was desperate to “make a point” while here, relieved of such a necessity, he can indulge in frivolity. Jean-Claude Carriere (La Piscine/ The Swimming Pool, 1969) lent a hand to the screenplay.

An unexpected delight.

The World of Henry Orient (1964) ***

This is what happens when you have a Hayley Mills comedy without Hayley Mills – where she’s stuck between the mischievousness of a child and on the cusp of growing up – and a Peter Sellers comedy which doesn’t contain much Peter Sellers. And while what’s left is on the whole endearing in that innocent fashion you could still easily achieve in this Hollywood era, it still comes over, to a contemporary audience, as though there’s something missing and the usual Sellers antics are not sufficient to fill in the gaps.

For the record, Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) is a pompous self-absorbed concert pianist carrying on an affair with married woman Stella (Paula Prentiss), who’s so new to the adultery business it makes her skittish, only meeting up with her lover in Central Park in case, perchance, a suspicious husband is scoping out Orient’s apartment.

He believes a pair of pubescent teenage girls, the more outgoing Val (Tippy Walker), old enough to be seeing a psychiatrist on a daily basis, and the more reticent Gil (Merrie Spaeth), are spying on him because, well, they are, or at least they did, once, by chance when they were galloping around Central Park. So when they turn up in the audience at one of his concerts and bump into him, literally, in the street, paranoia gets the better of him.

While it’s true that Val has developed a crush on the pianist, the real extent of the girls’ growing up involves little more than romantic fantasies majoring on unlikely adventure and conversations about shaving their legs. We’re not talking about slapping on the make-up and wearing daring attire. Primarily, Orient appears as the adjunct to the lives of a pair of girls who have parental issues, Gil minus a divorced father (her fantasies mostly revolve around her dad coming back) and Val minus both parents, who though still married, have abandoned her while they travel around the world.

Most of the time we’re with the girls being kids, leaping over rocks and fire hydrants and the occasional small child on a tricycle, or duping grown-ups into thinking they have taken desperately ill in the street.

Unfortunately, all that drives the story is over-plotting. Orient and Val’s mum Isabel (Angela Lansbury), also of the adulterous persuasion, fall for each other only for the girls to uncover the affair, sending Orient fleeing the country, and triggering various kinds of parental-child reconciliation, before the girls get on with the proper business of growing up and boys and fashion.

Peter Sellers does his best, but this isn’t Pink Panther territory and he’s forgotten the rule about working with animals and children and there’s little any comedian has in his locker that can compete with cuteness. Tippy Walker made only two more movies though one was the lead in counter-culture drama Jennifer (1971). Merrie Spaeth dumped Hollywood and went into politics. Neither of the girls was a particularly good actress and the movie just relies on their personalities. You might be more inclined to wonder why Paula Prentiss (Man’s Favorite Sport, 1964) and Angela Lansbury (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) were wasted in small parts.

Possibly the most interesting name here is director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) making his movie debut. Written by Nunnally Johnson (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) and his daughter Nora, based on her novel.

An oddity, and harmless enough, but not one you’re going to be demanding needs reassessment.

The Ravishing Idiot / Agent 38-22-36 (1964) ****

Hadn’t been aware that Brigitte Bardot (Viva Maria!, 1966) had made a spy picture. The original English title doesn’t indicate that. Given co-star Anthony Perkins (Psycho, 1960) had previously shown no predilection for comedy and that this was shaping up to be an espionage spoof, my heart sank.

Except for Jacques Tati – and he was only welcome in the arthouse – French comedies of this period did not translate, the antics of a Bourvil or Louis De Funes limited in their attraction. Spy spoofs suffered from over-playing or gormless characters.

So it is with some astonishment that I can report this French-made English-set number is an utter delight, full of terrific sight gags, buckets of charm and a storyline so daft it turns out to be seamless. There’s not one but two ravishing idiots – if you accept how the female gaze might look upon Anthony Perkins – and several other idiots who might not fall into the ravishing department.

Harry Compton (Anthony Perkins) is so smitten with seamstress-cum-model Penelope Lightfeather (Brigitte Bardot) that he over-runs his lunch break to catch a glimpse of her in a restaurant. Consequently, he is sacked from his job at a bank. Penelope is demoted to seamstress for being too truthful when modelling a dress for wealthy client Lady Barbara Dumfrey (Denise Provence).

Meanwhile, Barbara’s husband, Sir Reginald (Andre Luguet), a first-class upper-class dolt, is being set up as bait to catch the head of the Russian spy network in London. He has been entrusted with a fake report which MI5 hopes will lead them to the top Russian spy whose code name could be Aunt Fanny.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Harry turns out to be a Russian spy. He is given the job of stealing the fake plans. After Penelope reveals she is a member of the Communist Party, he enrols her in his scheming. Unfortunately, she will have to be denounced afterwards. Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, Barbara, believing the plans are some kind of birthday gift, has opened the safe to all her friends to show where they are hidden, not imagining that her household may contain a traitor. Indiscreet that she is, she’s even told Penelope the code to the safe.

It only remains for all the incompetents to express their idiocy in the widest possible manner. Naturally, misconceptions abound. An assassin is drugged by his elderly victim because she thinks he’s crazy. Penelope accuses the assassin, a cop, of being as useless a cop as Harry is of being a spy.

The visual gags are inspired, beginning with a credit sequence of bowler hats. The meet cute is under a table. Chaos ensues when a dog steals Penelope’s shoes. Getting a table in a restaurant is a version of musical chairs. When the door to the secret safe swings open Harry shuts it. A hovercraft version of a vacuum cleaner goes haywire. Bowties fall in ice buckets, dresses to the floor. Duffer Dumfrey leaves the spies alone in the room with the safe.

But there’s no wink to the audience. Nobody is playing it for laughs and therefore they come easily. Two twists at the end make sense of the title.

Brigitte Bardot displays a fine knack for comedy. Anthony Perkins makes the jump from awkward maladroit to charming.

Directed by Edourd Molinari (La Cage aux Folles, 1978) with a screenplay by Francois Billetdoux (La Gamberge, 1962) and Andre and Georges Tabet (Don’t Look Now..We’re Being Shot At, 1966) from the novel by Charles Exbrayat.

An effortless confection.