UP THE FRONT

UK, 1972, 89 minutes, Colour.

Frankie Howerd, Bill Fraser, William Mervyn, Linda Gray, Jonathan Cecil, Dora Bryan, Stanley Holloway, Bob Hoskins, Peter Bull, Vernon Dobtcheff..

Directed by Bob Kellett.

Frankie Howerd had a long career in comedy, especially in television and films. During the 1960s and early 1970s he appeared in The Chastity Belt and, especially, the comedy television series Up Pompeii. He also appeared in several Carry on films.

Frankie Howerd characteristically broke the fourth wall, looking at the audience, looking straight to camera, confiding all his thoughts and feelings, his jokes, his mischief, and the touch of the affected disapproval at times to the audience.

This film, playing with the Pompeii title, is set in World War I, Up the Front, starting in an aristocratic mansion, Frankie Howerd is Lurk, a servant, hypnotised during a show, then volunteering for the war – and all kinds of adventures and misadventures in France at the front.

Once again, a considerable number of British character actors are there in support. But, Frankie Howerd is an acquired taste, popular in his time, but not so lasting. Which means that this is a film for his fans and for those studying the style of popular British film comedy in the 1960s and 1970s.