Displaying items by tag: Charlie Drake

MR TEN PER CENT

UK, 1967, 84 minutes, Colour.

Charlie Drake, Derek Nimmo, Wanda Ventham, John Le Mesurier, Anthony Nichols, Noel Dyson, John Laurie, George Baker, Una Stubbs.

Directed by Peter Graham Scott.

Dear oh dear!

The diminutive comedian, Charlie Drake, was very popular on British television in the 1960s. He also made four films, slight comedies, not particularly well received by critics or the public, The Cracksman being the most successful.

This, his final starring role, is for diehards only, his complete fans. Yet he continued to have a successful career on television and was appearing in supporting roles in various films for the next 30 years.

In retrospect, many audiences will find his performance highly contrived, often very silly, trying too hard.

The film opens with his explaining Swan Lake while working on a building site, pairing with a policeman. Later, with an eye on the portrait of Oscar Wilde, he fancies himself as a dramatist, posh accent though mixing vocabulary, and later will fancy himself advising on how he his play should be produced. But, the play is highly dramatic, comes across as farcical. The unscrupulous entrepreneur, played by John Le Mesurier, decides to profit by investing in a commercial failure. His chosen director  is played by Derek Nimmo, himself a very eccentric performer (most successful in television’s Oh Brother).

The would-be playwright interferes with the rehearsals, is taken in by a financier, does not realise how he is being used – but, eventually, ousted from the play, tries to sabotage the London performance, audiences flocking to see and laugh at the farcical play.

Only Charlie Drake’s fans will be persuaded by the last sequence, where the audience realises that he is sincere, hopeful, and applauds him.

The same theme was far more successfully handled by expert Mel Brooks the following year with his comedy classic, The Producers, with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder (as well as the musical version in the 2000s with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) – and we all remember the extraordinary song and dance routine, Springtime with Hitler!

THE CRACKSMAN

UK, 1963, 112 minutes, Colour.

Charlie Drake, George Sanders, Dennis Price, Nyree Dawn Porter, Eddie Byrne, Finlay Currie, Percy Herbert, Geoffrey Keen, Patrick Cargill, Norman Bird, Ronnie Barker.

Directed by Peter Graham Scott.

Despite the notable cast, and the big Cinemascope and colour treatment, this is a comedy that is very much of its time, indication of British cinema in the early 1960s, but not the kind of comedy that lasts.

It is a star vehicle for comedian, Charlie Drake, who had his major successes in television series in the late 1950s and early 1960s – and continued after his slate of films which did not bring him lasting cinema success. While popular at the time, he is very much an acquired taste.

Charlie Drake contributed to the writing of the screenplay, a star vehicle for himself, naivete personified, a completely ingenuous character. He is a locksmith, working in the London streets, content with himself and his ability for being able to unlock any lock, no matter how difficult. So, short in stature, roly-poly in size, naive as well as wisecracking, he is played on by quite a number of characters starting with Dennis Price who passes himself off as a wealthy man and is able to persuade the cracksman to enter a house to rob it. And the police arresting.

The scenario happens over and over again throughout the film, the cracksman being taken in, doing a range of jobs, back in prison where, in fact, he is rather admired – but also played on. (And, for fans of the two Ronnies, here is Ronnie Barker as a prisoner, prior to his television term as Fletcher in Porridge.)

Ultimately, when the cracksman is out of jail, he is used by two gangs for quite an elaborate robbery, one gang led by Eddie Byrne, the other, more suave, led by, of all people, George Sanders. Ultimately, the ingenuous cracksman who has fallen for an undercover policeman, Nyree Dawn Porter, is able to set the two gangs in a fight against each other.

The supporting cast is enjoyable, Patrick Cargill as a snobby guide in the Museum, Finlay Currie as a good old prisoner, Percy Herbert leading the gangs in prison, Geoffrey Keen as a magistrate.

SANDS OF THE DESERT

UK, 1960, 92 minutes, Colour.

Charlie Drake, Peter Arne, Sarah Branch, Raymond Huntley, Rebecca Dignam, Peter Illing, Marne Maitland, Martin Benson, Eric Pohlmann, Judith Furse.

Directed by John Paddy Carstairs.

There is no major reason to see this film. Perhaps a special study of British comedy of the 1950s and 1960s means that it would have some kind of research value.

While the film was written and directed by John Paddy Carstairs, filming from the 1930s, many comedies including a number by Norman Wisdom, and Tommy the Toreador with Tommy Steele, it is certainly not one of his best. And, it is a star vehicle for the diminutive Charlie Drake, popular on television and the star of a few films.

Perhaps it was very popular at the time that he is very hard to take and, since it is at the centre of the film, the film is rather hard to take. He has one of those exotic scenarios, dithering employee of a travel firm sent to an exotic location where there has been sabotaged in order to set up a summer camp.

Number of British character actors appear in the supporting cast, most surprisingly the very serious always Raymond Huntley who must have been wondering what he was doing in this film. There is more than a touch of glamour with Sarah Branch. There are various agents, double agents, intrigue, possible dangers for Charlie Drake that is managing to escape them all with various pratfalls and plot complications which strain for laughs.

But, a good word for the young girl played by Rebecca Dignam, a mute, but very expressive and a relief to have someone sensible in the film.