A spoof in which a radio crooner thwarts a thief attempting to steal a Buddhist idol. This film was also known as The Brass Monkey.
Stanley Windrush has to interrupt his university education when he is called up towards the end of the war. He quickly proves himself not to be officer material. This leads him to meets up with wily Private Cox who knows exactly how all the scams work in the confused world of the British Army. And Stanley's brigadier War Office uncle seems to be up to something more than a bit shady too.
A top cast starting with Alastir Sim, George Cole and Terry Thomas. Sim plays the pretty evil hitman, Harry Hawkins who is foiled in his quest to blow up a politician by vacuum cleaner salesman William Blake (George Cole). The plot twists and turns to such an extent that it's quite hard to follow, but brilliant all the same. Terry Thomas appears for only about 20 minutes, but adds a hint of magic to the whole film. As always Sim and Cole work together brilliantly on screen and it's just a funny, quite creepy, good film.
Blue Murder at St. Trinians (1957)
To further the aims of the St Trinian's Marriage Bureau run by Flash Harry, the school contrives to win a competition with a European "Goodwill" trip as prize, to the horror of the Ministry of Education. Joe Mangan, father of a sixth former and hiding out at the school after a Hatton Garden diamond robbery, is persuaded to travel with the girls as their new headmistress, leaving the real one trussed up in the belfry. At least her arrival had allowed the remains of the Army unit sent in to keep order to evacuate.
Jim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the University he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with the unexciting Margeret Peel, a friend of the Professors. All in all, the pub is the only place that he can go.
His misery is completed at a dreadful weekend gathering of the Welch Clan by the arrival of son Bertrand. Not so much that Bertrand is loud mouthes and boorish - which he is, but he has a companion in the form of Christine Callaghan, the sort of woman that Jim can only dream of.
Roger Thursby is just starting out as a solicitor, full of ideals which is a bit too keen for his fellow lawyers. Also starring Richard Attenborough, Ian Carmichael, Irene Handl, John Le Masurier, Nicholas Parsons and Leslie Phillips.
A classic farce in which a gang of crooks set out to kidnap a wealthy mans' daughter. Unfortunately they get the mans' unwanted wife instead. When the millionaire refuses to pay for her, she joins the crooks and plots revenge.
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A superb adaptation of the childrens classic about a boy who is only a few inches tall. Russ Tamblyn plays the title role, with Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas as a pair of loveable bungling villains. Winner of an Academy Award for its Special Effects. |
The greedy Editor of a trashy scandal magazine is confronted by several of the individuals whose lives are erroneously and luridly described in his organ. Their attempts to stop the publication of the articles themselves lead to a series of amusing events.
A zany collection of misfits led by an ageing military man (Terry-Thomas) go on a spree of robbing mink coats. An unlikely trio of women, (Anthene Seyler, Hattie Jaques & Elspeth Duxbury) find new reasons to live.... Until their housekeeper (Billy Whitelaw) is suspected of the robberies.
World Health Officials panic when a man dies of smallpox at the London Airport. With Honor Blackman.
British comedy by the director best known for the four Miss Maple movies starring Margaret Rutherford. Terry Thomas is a clumsy detective who's been called to a health club to investigate the strange things going on. When he gets there he finds it be very difficult handling all the clues he thinks point him in the right direction. Police Inspector Lionel Jeffries regards Thomas as being the strange thing going on.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
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In the early days of the 20th Century, a British Newspaper offers a prize for the winner of a cross-channel air race which brings flyers from all over the world. There are many sub-plots as the flyers jockey for position and the affections of many women. Also well known for one of the greatest gaffes in British cinema, where nuclear power station cooling towers are plainly visible during the length of a train journey Nominated for Best (Original) story and screenplay. |
How to Murder your Wife (1964)
Jack Lemmon is a happily unmarried man with all the creature comforts one could desire, including a Butler who takes care of all of his material needs. At a batchelor party for a friend, Lemmon gets drunk and wakes up married to an Italian woman who speaks no english. As you can imagine it totally alters his life, he changes the cartoon he writes and shifts it from a secret agent to a household comedy.
When he starts to get trouble with all of the changes in his life, he starts to plot that at least his secret agent cartoon will return to order and plans, in his daily comic strip, killing his wife. When she disappears, his cartoons are used during the trial as evidence.
La Grande Vadrouille (1966) - review by Dominique Christiaen
An Anglo-French coproduction from 1966, directed by Gérard Oury, featuring french comics Bourvil and Louis de Funès, and Terry Thomas. The story: Squadron Leader Thomas is shot down over Paris in 1941, and Painter Bourvil and Conductor de Funès help him and his crew to escape to neutral territory. The film is a typical example of French comedy of the sixties, and is great fun to watch.
Where were you when the lights went out? (1968)
A comedy star who as spent her life playing virgins is about to retire, her producer is about to fall apart and her husband is about to stray. Suddenly, New York blows a fuse, and everyone is forced to leave the city in total darkness, and to cope with each another.
Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967)
Jerry plays an American in England, scheming to get rich quick - while Terry Thomas plays his English counterpart.
A married couple follow their son to Europe to keep an eye on him and to revitalise themselves. Instead they end up in a series of romantic mixups
A mismatched collection of racers show up to compete in a 1920's road rally. Who will win? the preening playboy, the industrialist wannabe, the goofy british officers or the dastardly smuggler? No prizes for guessing which one Terry-Thomas plays...
A comedy about a madcap search throughout Europe for 13 chairs in which a fortune in jewels is hidden.
The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)
Doctors are being murdered in a bizarre manner - bats, bees, killer frog masks etc., which represent the biblical plagues. The crimes are being orchestrated by a demented organ player with the help of his mute assistant. The detective is stumped until hr finds that all of the doctors being killed assisted a Dr. Vesalius on an unsuccessful operation involving the wife of a Dr. Phibes. But he couldn't be the culprit could he? He was killed in a car crash upon learning of his wife's death......
The moon rises at a predestined angle and awakens the sleeping Dr. Phibes three years later. To his dismay, he learns that his house has been demolished and his papyrus scrolls stolen, the scrolls show where the Pharoah's tomb in Egypt, where the River of Life flows. After identifying the source of the papyrus theft, he packs and leaves for Egypt with his assistant Vulnavia, still intent on awakening his dead wife Victoria. The parties responsible for the theft of the scrolls suffer from an attrition problem as Inspector Trout chases him across the world.
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Retelling of the Robin Hood legend with animals for the charaters. Robin Hood is an outlaw who starts a gang in Sherwood Forest to fight the injustices of the Sherriff of Nottingham, who levies unpayable taxes on the people. An imaginative Disney version of the story, in which fun and romance abound with the obligatory swashbuckling which you would expect. Academy Award nominations for Best Song - "Love" |
Five men trapped in the basement vault of an office building share visions with each another about their demise. Stories revolve around vampires, bodily dismemberment, East Indian mysticism, an insurance scam and an artist who kills by painting his victims deaths.