Displaying items by tag: Rebecca Dignam

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.