The Wrong Box (1966)

 "Yes, I enjoy an egg myself. They don't make good pets, though."

This splendid film is, yes, a farce, quite literally, and one executed with delicious clockwork precision, the climactic scene at once wonderfully chaotic and utterly orderly in how everything is tied together. This is entirely true. Yet the farce, perfect though it is, is merely the plot as background: this film is memorable for the wit and the performances.

There is, of course, exquisite visual humour, not least at the end whith the hearse chase, the unexpected real funeral, the band. The concept is delicious: a tontine. A sum of money is invested for a large number of young boys, with the last surviving to inherit all. The film begins with a highly entertaining series of, well, stupid deaths, crammed with cameos from British character actors. Finally, we are left with two brothers, played by those great theatrical knights John Mills and Ralph Richardson, both as adept at comedy as one might expect. The peerless Peter Cook and the no less inspired Dudley Moore steal the show, of course, but Michawl Caine is a superb comic straight man.

It's a shock to see Tony Hancock in colour, at this late stage. He is, let's be honest, phoning it in, and past his best. Yet he phones it in with aplomb. Peter Sellers is superb, but that's a given.

This superb cast, though, would be nothing without the sparkling, witty script, of a type that, despite its Vicxtorian setting, is redolent of the era between the satire boom and Monty Python, when British comedy was in glorious ferment, with Peter Cook at the centre of most things that mattered. A masterpiece that ought to be much better known.

The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

 "Radiation's rising. Still, one mustn't grumble too much.

I'm full of sesations from this extraordinary film. It contains multitudes. It is, I admit, my only experience of a Spike Milligan (co-)script, full of irreverent absurdity, the sort which wqould later begat a less overtly successor in Monty Python.

Thetre is much more, though. Despite the very British humour that anchors everything, this is a cinematic adaptation of an absurdist play that feels like Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, which is high praise indeed. It's a post-apocalyptic world, set in the near future to 1969, with absurdity upon absurdity. Yet it's grim, in the traditions of Ionesco and Beckett. Indeed, the constant cynicism in the face of nuclear annihilation and the equally cynical, yet glorious, skewering of the British "stiff upper lip" denies us even the consolations of existentialism.

Despite this, the humour is exquisite. Realism being abandoned, we may use the setting to skewer British behaviour. Hence Arthur Lowe (genius casting) as the father, leaning heroically and deeply into another sort of comedy. I suspect, in person, over a pint, he would have been no Captain Mainwaring. Despite Peter Cook, Michael Hordern and others, his performance stands out. Beyond, even, that of Nurse Marty Feldman.

I can only urge you to saee this triumph of British comedy cinema which, deaspite its clear absurdist bent, is full of genus humour of the type one may expcct. You MUST see this film.

Bedazzled (1967)

 "Good evening. I couldn't help noticing that you were making an unsuccessful suicide bid."

Peter Cook, possibly the funniest man who ever lived, had a glorious, if not always consistent, career. His personal problems, particularly with too much booze, meant he was never quite as prolific as we, his fans, would have liked. But everything he did touch turned to comedy gold.

Except, largely, in the sphere of cinema. It's a huge relief, then, that Bedazzled is one film at least (The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is another) in which he gets the starring role and gets to showcase his talents playing the Devil, no less.

This is almost, but not quite, a portmaneau comedy in which Dudey Moore gets given seven wishes by the delightfully slippery Satan in which he tries to find happiness with the woman he loves, but there's always a devilishly clever catch that ruins everything. Yes, some material is recycled from sketches from Not Only... But Also, but who cares? Certainly not the BBC, who bloody junked most of it. And I don't care how gratuitous the Raquel Welch cameo may be, or how cheeky it may be to give her such high billing for five minutes.

The dialogue sparkles with wit and hilarity, and the central dynamic of Pete 'n' Dud shines throughout. This is one of the real greats of comedy cinema- too coherent to be a portmanteau, cleverly and hilariously scripted, well made and cinematic in scope while remembering that its purpose is first and foremost to be very, very funny. And it bloody well is.

The Princess Bride (1987)

"Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?"

"Yes."

"Morons."

It's a genuine mystery: This Is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest films ever. How, then, can pretty much the same team- Rob Reiner directs, Christopher Guest has a major role- produce something so unfunny as this.

I can see what it’s trying to do- play with the silliness of the tropes and cliches. Hence we have exaggerated tropes such as a princess with absurd faith that her ridiculously heroic man will save her, and a Spanish swordsman who lives to avenge his father’s death. But none of this is addressed with any real wit, and it’s obly the names (Prince Humperdinck) and cameos from the likes of Peter Cook and Mel Smith that tell us this is intended to be a comedy.

All this is narrated by Columbo to his annoying, sport-obsessed grandson for no apparent reason, in a framing sequence that has no obvious reason to be there. It describes a weird mediaeval word where fictional countries mix with real ones and people seem to have heard of Australia. And where there are, er, “rodents of unusual size” which look awfully like a man in a suit. It’s clearly meant to be funny. It isn’t. An odd misfire.

I very strongly suspect, mind, that the “battle of wits” scene strongly influenced the first episode of Sherlock.

Supergirl (1984)

"I'm considering nothing less than world domination!"

I know that this film, well, isn't exactly good, but, I mean, come on- this is a delightfully quirky bit of '80s silliness which combines the style of the Superman films, generic '80s action films tropes, some delightful silliness and a completely random jolly hockey sticks, Mallory Towers side. It's gloriously bonkers. This is a film which has Peter Cook utter the line "Holy Cow!"- what's not to love?

Then again, so is the character, and I can't help reflecting that the film was made, in glorious Pinewood Studios, the very year before DC killed Supergirl off in Crisis of Infinite Earth, sentencing her to death for the crime of having an overly convoluted backstory. And, well, we see that here- Argo City is a bit of Krypton that survived the planet's destruction for vaguely unconvincing reasons, and all this is because of the new character of Zaltar- played with an acting ability far above the level that the character deserves by the great Peter O'Toole, who accidentally destroys the city (except, naturally, Kara) with the film's main MacGuffin only to die a predictable death and end up as Kara's very own Obi-Wan style British morale-boosting ghost. It was clearly in the zeitgeist.

Helen Slater is more than good enough as the goody two-shoes character she's playing, but is upstaged in the billing by the splendid Faye Dunaway, who is having much more fun chewing the scenery with delightful gusto with wicked witch and baddie Selena. Yes, there's a certain creepiness in the love narrative between the very adult Ethan and the very innocent schoolgirl Kara, which is definitely eeeurgh, but the film is far more fun than its reputation suggests,

Yellowbeard (1983)

"Three farthings for a lump of shit please..."

This film is, well, not all that good which, considering that two of its three writers were Peter Cook and Graham Chapman, is rather bewildering. But it just isn't much good. And it killed Marty Feldman.

That isn't to say that there are no laughs at all, of course, nor that it isn't a pleasure to see the talents of those in them tags down there, plus Spike Milligan, Nigel Planer and even an eyebrow-raising from a very Let's Dance era David Bowie. But the whole thing never really takes off, perhaps partly because the script isn't great but in large part, I suspect, to a rather flat directorial style with no comedic timing or flourishes. Also, I have to say, the constant rape jokes don't exactly make for comfortable viewing.

Still, Graham Chapman is good, as is Marty Feldman in his last film, although Peter Cook is somewhat wasted in a straight man role. And the character of El Nebuloso is superb, with the scenes of Cheech and Chong, the acid pool and the torture device being the closest the film gets to being Pythonesque. But the film as a whole is a bit of a damp squib and worth seeing only for Monty Python or Peter Cook completists.

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)

" Peter, I was just jotting down a few reasons why you might want to leave IOP and come over to us at the Fairburn Organisation."

"Oh yes, that's very well put. I particularly like the noughts."

This is one of the greatest films ever made, a work of true genius. Yet so few people have seen it, or even heard of it, in spite of its stellar cast: it stars Peter Cook, and features the likes of John Cleese, Leicestershire lad Graham Chapman, Arthur Lowe, Harold Pinter (a Nobel Prize winner, no less!), Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Dennis Price, Ronnie Corbett and many, many more, and was scripted by Cleese and Chapman. It seems to have flopped, and pretty much vanished off the radar. That's a tragedy; it's one of the greatest works of satire ever, in any medium. Watch it now. Please.

Michael Rimmer (Cook) is a man with no past or hinterland but limitless ambition, who suddenly appears from nowhere. He seems to have no desires beyond the pursuit of power, and his entire personality is constructed so as to achieve his goals, even choosing his wife by focus group. We begin with him inveigling his way into a hopelessly inefficient advertising business managed by the hopeless Ferret (Lowe). This is a far cry from Mad Men, in spite of the sexy secretaries, and probably something of a commentary on the state of British industry circa 1970.

Rimmer gradually gets himself into a position of real power via mastery of opinion polls, and gradually ends up as a spin doctor to the political world, and eventually an MP, Chancellor, Prime Minister and ultimately absolute dictator. Rimmer ends up with the Tories, but it all seems very New Labour. And this is 1970. This film is quite scarily prophetic.

In 1970, political differences meant something. The political left was actually socialist. Unions had real power. Sensible, Keynesian economics was the orthodoxy. It all seemed to be a far cry from our modern era of managerial politics and interchangeable political parties, run by what Peter Oborne describes in his thought-provoking book as "the political class". Today (as Adam Curtis has rather eloquently discussed, especially in such series as The Trap and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace), this sense of politics as merely being about efficient ways of running a market economy with an ever-shrinking state. It seems such a clear contrast between then and now. Why, then, is this film so eerily prophetic?

The cynicism of the political class, and the meaninglessness of ideology, is plain to see. The unnamed Labour prime minister (suspiciously northern, pipe-smoking and, well, Wilsonesque, and played by the caretaker from Grange Hill!) unsuccessfully tries to lure Rimmer into joining the party, insisting that his lack of left-wing views need not be a problem, as Labour is "not bound to dogma". Worse still, once Rimmer is comfortably ensconced in senior Tory circles, a member of the cabinet makes a speech which is obviously meant to evoke Enoch Powell's racist "Rivers of Blood" speech. Yet Rimmer suggests that the Tory leader should do nothing to prevent the speech, but sack the minister afterwards. That way he can have his cake and eat it by looking like a man of principle by publicly opposing racism, while still giving the impression that the Conservatives are tough on immigration. It's deeply, deeply cynical.

The film isn't laugh out loud funny in the way that people might perhaps expect from this cast; it's very much in the style of Yes Minister or The Thick of It. But it's easily as good, as funny and as truthful as both of these, and I personally believe that it's a little more philosophically profound, even if there is a bit of nihilism underneath. Also, there's a pretty naked woman in it. Just saying.

There's another. less political, subtext too, I think. Peter Cook seems to be giving Rimmer the mannerisms of David Frost, and Cook once famously commented that his biggest ever regret was saving Frost from drowning. This entire film may well be one long character assassination, which would be rather ironic. Frost is executive producer...!

There's one thing that's puzzling me a little, though. There's a scene supposedly set in Nuneaton, although there's a suspicious lack of local accents, and I'd love to know whether or not it was filmed there. I know Nuneaton well, being a Hinckley lad, but I wasn't born until 1977, and I know the town centre was extensively redeveloped in the early '80s. So, can anyone put me out of my misery and tell me if it was filmed there or not? I can't say I recognise any of the locations, but things may have changed a lot.