Carry On Constable (1960)

 "A dog! That's a sign of Pluto, the darkest, most evil planet of all!"

Ok, this is no one's favourite Carry On film. The best years lie ahead. And yet... these films have an early format. Kenneth Connor has a type of character. Kenneth Williams is less camp, playing pretenbtious gits... yet the scene where he and Charles Hawtrey dress as old women is gloriously gay for 1960. Such nuances fascinate.

Leslie Phillips is absolutely a fixture in these early films, and both he and Kenneth Connor get contrasting love plots. That's an intrinsic part of the plot at this point. Although the pairing of Hattie Jacques and Sid Jameas- in a surpreisingly straight yet superb role- dominates here.

The cimedy is amusing but, like the previous film, not great. That is no condemnation, heaven forbid: the film should be judged on its own terms, those of a time where the sixties show no signs, yet, of swinging.

It's a fascinating glimpse of policing, and indeed life. sixty-three years ago. Policing is very military: police officers march in the morning and leave upon reaching their beats. "Phrenology" is not dismissed as a pseudoscience by self-declared intellectuals. 

This film isn't great. But it's perfectly good, and fascinating. Also... wasn't Hattie Jacques lovely?

Clockwise (1986)

 “It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope."

I was probably still in primary school when I last saw this film, expecting a straightforward comedy that, after all, starred John Cleese. That's not what I got, and I recall being disappointed.

What a difference thirty-five odd years makes.

I'm not, as a rule, one for farces. They run like clockwork; they tend to be masterful exercises in plotting and to showcase superb comic acting but, for me, they tend to be more a thing to admire than to love.

Yet this film, although genuinely funny in a gently facical way and showcasing a bravura performance from John Cleese and lots of fun little appearances from various familiar character actors, has a lot to say beneath the surface humour. Brian Stimpson is a man obsessed with punctuality and propriety who was, we learn, perpetually late in his youth. He has overcome his own flaws through fear of his own weaknesses. I can identify with that, certainly, in my own life.

Yet he's also a man with a slight chipon his shoulder but determinedly ambition. He's the firsty head of a state school to char the Headmasters' Conference, which is dominated by the public school clique that runs far too many things. He knows, deep down, despite his upper middke class lifestyle and respectability, that he will never be as "good" as they are, but he's chairman now. And, with all those evenings at Tory party events, he hopes this may be a step to political success. He can dream.

And yet, alas, not all ambitions can be realised in Thatcher's Britain. Hubris is still a thing. Sois nemesis. Stimpson's arrogance lets him down in the end, ruining his life but bringing him, also, a much-needed momemt of self-realisation and genuine self-awareness, wearing a monhk's robe on the side of a country road.

This is a superblyu crafted and surprisingly deep film. I'm impressed.

The Card (1952)

 "Oh, indeed. I thought you were a gentleman."

Ealing comedies are always fun to watch, lightly amusing and very well-acted and made, but they're also deceptively clever beneath the surface and have something to say, and this is no exception.

I've never read the original novel by Arnold Bennett, or indeed anything by him; I'm afraid this is essentially because he's been unfashionable ever since Virginia Woolf slagged him off. However, the script here is quite wonderful, a nice little light-hearted film of an unscrupulous yet somehow charming man who uses sneakiness and trickery to get on in life, but remains likeable enough for us to root for the loveable rogue, a difficult balancing act. Alec Guinness seems born to play the part, and his performance is triumphant- charismatic, broad and nuanced all at once, in a part where he not only stars but literally carries the whole film. 

Glynis Johns is also utterly magnificent and has perfect comic timing as a cheekily seductive femme fatale, and it's fun to see a minor role for Joan Hickson, many years before Miss Marple, still looking somewhat old.

This is a wonderful comedy of class, gentle greed and Edwardian social mores, but rings true today with its depiction of the sort of person who tends to end up rich and land on their feet. It's all very cleverly plotted and charms the viewer with the machinations of its loveable rogue. Not, perhaps, quite up there with the the best Ealing comedies, but a wonderfully fun way to spend ninety minutes.