Shut Up, I'm Talkin'!

So Lionel Jeffries has died - sad. Just a little while ago, I was writing about Ian Carmichael, and now another British character actor from the '50s and '60s has gone.

The comment I've seen so far has seemed to emphasise his role as Dick Van Dyke's dad (despite being younger by 6 months) in Chitty, Chitty, Bang! Bang! and his film The Railway Children (one of four or so that he directed).

I'd like instead to remember two of his earlier comedies:-
The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) (this is an early trailer)

and
Two Way Stretch (1960)

I marginally prefer the latter, although I love the slightly more 'jazzy' feel of The Wrong Arm...

Note that in both Jeffries plays against Peter Sellers and Bernard Cribbens. amongst togers - fantastic ensemble playing.

But Not in the South

So, Ian Carmichael has died, aged 89. I stopped to think of all the films I'd seen him in: a lot were comedies (Boulting Brothers) from the late 50s and early 60s. He was in one acknowledged masterpiece, I'm Alright Jack, with Peter Sellars, Terry-Thomas, Denis Price, Richard Attenborough, Margaret Rutherford... crikey! ...and the list goes on.

But although he had the lead in that film, it is successfully stolen away from him by - well almost everyone around him, but particularly Sellers. He was also in Lucky Jim, but miscast, I thought.

So I'd like instead to remember him in School for Scoundrels - the film based on Stephen Potter's One-Upmanship books.

So I've just had an enjoyable afternoon looking at excerpts of the film on YouTube. And yes, it is another one of those movies - a little like Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Mouse That Roared - that I can remember almost every scene and line from, although I have no specific memory of ever watching the whole thing through from beginning to end.

These two clips bookend Henry's ownership of the appalling 'Swiftmobile' - in the second he has had his Yeovil training.


Which lead me to look at the original books - dated and class-ridden, but still very entertaining.

A word of warning: There is a 2006 remake, which looks absolutely awful from the clips.