Oh, Mr Porter!
Encyclopedia
Oh, Mr Porter! is a British
comedy film
starring Will Hay
with Moore Marriott
and Graham Moffatt
and directed by Marcel Varnel
. While not his most commercially successful, it is probably his best-known film to modern audiences. It is widely acclaimed as the best of Hay's work, and a classic of its time and genre.
The plot of Oh, Mr Porter was loosely based on the Arnold Ridley
play The Ghost Train and was later remade (with a naval setting) as Up the Creek
(1958) with David Tomlinson
and Peter Sellers
. The title was taken from Oh! Mr Porter
, a music hall
song.
Jimmy Perry
said that the triumvirate
of Captain Mainwaring, Corporal Jones and Private Pike in Dad's Army
was inspired by watching Oh, Mr Porter.
) is an inept railway worker who - due to family connections - is given the job of stationmaster at a remote and ramshackle rural Northern Irish
railway station in the (fictitious) town of Buggleskelly, situated on the border with the then Irish Free State
.
After taking the ferry from England
to Northern Ireland, Porter is aghast when he discovers how isolated the station is. It is situated out in the countryside, two miles cross-country from the nearest bus stop. To make matters worse, local legend has it that the ghost of One-Eyed Joe the Miller haunts the line and, as a result, no-one will go near the station after dark.
Porter's co-workers at the station are the elderly deputy stationmaster, Harbottle (Moore Marriott
), and an overweight, insolent young porter, Albert (Graham Moffatt
), who make a living by stealing goods in transit and swapping railway tickets for food. They welcome Porter to his new job by regaling him with tales of the deaths and disappearances of previous stationmasters - each apparently the victim of the curse of One-Eyed Joe.
From the beginning it is obvious that the station is run very unprofessionally. Porter is woken up by a cow sticking its head through the room he is sleeping in, for instance (the cow has been lost in transit and is being milked by Harbottle), and the team's breakfast consists of bacon made from a litter of piglets which the railway are supposed to be looking after for a local farmer.
Determined to shake things up (particularly after he is forced to deal with the irate farmer when he comes to collect his pigs), Stationmaster Porter tries to renovate the station in several ways, most sensibly by painting the entire station, but also by less conventional means - including stopping the passing express and organising an excursion
to Connemara
.
Porter attempts to drum up business amongst the local people in the pub by offering tickets to this excursion, but due to arguments about where the excursion should go a fight breaks out. Porter crawls to safety in the landlord's rooms next door, where he meets a one-eyed man who introduces himself as Joe and offers to buy all of the tickets for an away game that the village football team, the Buggleskelly Wednesday, are playing the following day.
Unbeknown to Porter, however, he has really agreed to transport a group of criminals who are involved in running guns
to the Irish Free State
. The 'football' train leaves at six a.m. the following morning, rather than the scheduled ten a.m., at the insistence of Joe and although Porter questions some of the odd packages being loaded onto the train, he accepts Joe's claim that these are in fact goalposts for the game.
The train disappears as the smugglers divert it down a disused branch line
near the border, and with everybody claiming that Porter has lost his mind (there is no such team as Buggleskelly Wednesday, and Harbottle points out that the local team wouldn't leave without him as he is their centre forward). Apparently this misunderstanding causes Porter to lose his job, as no one has seen the train. Then after his co-workers talk about a tunnel on a nearby disused branch line, Porter decides to head off to track down the errant engine (in hopes of getting his job back).
The trio find the missing train inside a derelict railway tunnel, underneath a supposedly haunted windmill
. They investigate and are briefly captured by the gun runners, but escape and climb progressively higher up the windmill until eventually they are trapped at the top.
Using the windmill sails, they contrive to get down where they hatch a plan to capture the gun runners. Coupling the carriages containing the criminals and their guns to their own engine, Gladstone, they carry them away from the border at full speed, burning everything from Harbottle's underwear to the remnants of a fence they smash through in order to keep up steam. To keep the criminals quiet, Albert climbs on top of the carriage and hits anyone who sticks their head out with a large shovel.
Porter writes a note explaining the situation and places it in Harbottle's empty 'medicine' bottle. When they pass a large station, he throws the bottle through the window of the stationmaster's office, alerting the authorities to their plight. The entire railway goes into action, with lines being closed and other trains re-routed so that Gladstone can finally crash into a siding where the waiting police force arrest the gun runners.
After a short-lived celebration, in which Harbottle points out that Gladstone is ninety years old and Porter claims it is good for another ninety, the engine explodes after its hectic journey, and Porter, Harbottle and Albert lower their hats in respect.
on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway
, which had closed to goods in 1936. Filming took place from mid-June 1937 and lasted approximately two months. The windmill
in which Porter and his colleagues are trapped is located at Terling
, Essex
, and "Gladstone", the ancient steam train, was portrayed by No.2 Northiam 2-4-0T built by Hawthorn Leslie
in 1899 and loaned by the Kent and East Sussex Railway
to the film. The engine was returned to the company after completion of the film and remained in service until 1941, when it was scrapped.
The title sequence uses scenes shot at a variety of locations on the Waterloo
to Southampton
railway line, and according to John Huntley
in his book Railways on Screen, "[t]he editor reversed his negative at one stage in preparing the title backgrounds, causing them to come out reversed on the final print". The scene in which Porter travels to Buggleskelly by bus, whilst being warned of a terrible danger by locals, parodies that of the Tod Browning
film, Dracula
(1931).
The Southern Railway of Northern Ireland that Porter works for is fictitious, in reality from the route chosen on the map the line would have belonged to the Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
, with Buggleskelly being close to the real town of Lisnaskea
. In addition, the Irish border on the map portrayed in the film is inaccurate, placing the border too far east, and roughly along the eastern coast of Lough Erne
rather than the border of County Fermanagh
.
The British Film Institute
included the film in its 360 Classic Feature Films list; Variety
magazine described the movie as "amusing, if over-long", noting that there was "[n] o love interest to mar the comedy"; and the cult website TV Cream
listed it at number 41 in its list of cinema's Top 100 Films.
The film critic Barry Norman
included it among his 100 best films of all time, and fellow critic Derek Malcolm
also included the film in his Century of Films, describing it as "perfectly representing a certain type of bumbling British humour", despite being directed by a Parisian director.
The director Marcel Varnel considered the film as amongst his best work, and it was described in 2006 as "a comic masterpiece of the British cinema" by The Times
in its obituary for writer, Val Guest
.
spoof
documentary
Norbert Smith - a Life
, as Oh, Mr Bank Robber! starring "Will Silly".
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
starring Will Hay
Will Hay
William Thomson "Will" Hay was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.-Early life:He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, in north east England, to William R...
with Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
and Graham Moffatt
Graham Moffatt
Graham Moffatt was a British character actor and comedian.Born in Hammersmith, London, he is best known for a number of films where he appeared with Will Hay and Moore Marriott as 'Albert': an insolent, overweight, overgrown-schoolboy type character, loosely reminiscent of Billy Bunter.His first...
and directed by Marcel Varnel
Marcel Varnel
Marcel Varnel was a film director. He was born Marcel Hyacinthe le Bozec in Paris, France.Varnel started his working life on the Paris stage but soon became a director of musical comedies. In 1925 he moved to New York working as director in several Broadway operettas, musicals and dramas for the...
. While not his most commercially successful, it is probably his best-known film to modern audiences. It is widely acclaimed as the best of Hay's work, and a classic of its time and genre.
The plot of Oh, Mr Porter was loosely based on the Arnold Ridley
Arnold Ridley
Major William Arnold Ridley, OBE was an English playwright and actor, first notable as the author of the play The Ghost Train and later in life for portraying the elderly Private Charles Godfrey in the popular British sitcom Dad's Army .-Early life:Ridley was born in Walcot, Bath, England where...
play The Ghost Train and was later remade (with a naval setting) as Up the Creek
Up the Creek (1958 film)
Up the Creek is a 1958 British comedy film written and directed by Val Guest which starred David Tomlinson, Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge and Lionel Jeffries.-Plot synopsis:...
(1958) with David Tomlinson
David Tomlinson
David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson was an English film actor. He is primarily remembered for his roles as authority figure George Banks in Mary Poppins, fraudulent magician Professor Emelius Browne in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and as hapless antagonist Peter Thorndyke in The Love Bug.-Early life:Born...
and Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
. The title was taken from Oh! Mr Porter
Oh! Mr Porter
Oh! Mr Porter is an old British music hall song about a girl "going too far". It was famously part of the repertoire of singer Marie Lloyd. Written in 1893 by George LeBrunn, its lyrics include this chorus:...
, a music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
song.
Jimmy Perry
Jimmy Perry
Jimmy Perry OBE is an English writer, scriptwriter, producer, author and actor, most famous for devising and co-writing the BBC sitcoms Dad's Army with David Croft.-Education:...
said that the triumvirate
Triumvirate
A triumvirate is a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals, each a triumvir . The arrangement can be formal or informal, and though the three are usually equal on paper, in reality this is rarely the case...
of Captain Mainwaring, Corporal Jones and Private Pike in Dad's Army
Dad's Army
Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...
was inspired by watching Oh, Mr Porter.
Plot
William Porter (Will HayWill Hay
William Thomson "Will" Hay was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.-Early life:He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, in north east England, to William R...
) is an inept railway worker who - due to family connections - is given the job of stationmaster at a remote and ramshackle rural Northern Irish
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
railway station in the (fictitious) town of Buggleskelly, situated on the border with the then Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
.
After taking the ferry from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to Northern Ireland, Porter is aghast when he discovers how isolated the station is. It is situated out in the countryside, two miles cross-country from the nearest bus stop. To make matters worse, local legend has it that the ghost of One-Eyed Joe the Miller haunts the line and, as a result, no-one will go near the station after dark.
Porter's co-workers at the station are the elderly deputy stationmaster, Harbottle (Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
), and an overweight, insolent young porter, Albert (Graham Moffatt
Graham Moffatt
Graham Moffatt was a British character actor and comedian.Born in Hammersmith, London, he is best known for a number of films where he appeared with Will Hay and Moore Marriott as 'Albert': an insolent, overweight, overgrown-schoolboy type character, loosely reminiscent of Billy Bunter.His first...
), who make a living by stealing goods in transit and swapping railway tickets for food. They welcome Porter to his new job by regaling him with tales of the deaths and disappearances of previous stationmasters - each apparently the victim of the curse of One-Eyed Joe.
From the beginning it is obvious that the station is run very unprofessionally. Porter is woken up by a cow sticking its head through the room he is sleeping in, for instance (the cow has been lost in transit and is being milked by Harbottle), and the team's breakfast consists of bacon made from a litter of piglets which the railway are supposed to be looking after for a local farmer.
Determined to shake things up (particularly after he is forced to deal with the irate farmer when he comes to collect his pigs), Stationmaster Porter tries to renovate the station in several ways, most sensibly by painting the entire station, but also by less conventional means - including stopping the passing express and organising an excursion
Excursion train
An excursion train is a chartered train run for a special event or purpose.Examples of excursion trains:* A train to a major sporting event* A train run for railfans or tourism...
to Connemara
Connemara
Connemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...
.
Porter attempts to drum up business amongst the local people in the pub by offering tickets to this excursion, but due to arguments about where the excursion should go a fight breaks out. Porter crawls to safety in the landlord's rooms next door, where he meets a one-eyed man who introduces himself as Joe and offers to buy all of the tickets for an away game that the village football team, the Buggleskelly Wednesday, are playing the following day.
Unbeknown to Porter, however, he has really agreed to transport a group of criminals who are involved in running guns
Gunrunning
Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the illegal trafficking or smuggling of contraband weapons or ammunition.The 1997 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provides a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted...
to the Irish Free State
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. The 'football' train leaves at six a.m. the following morning, rather than the scheduled ten a.m., at the insistence of Joe and although Porter questions some of the odd packages being loaded onto the train, he accepts Joe's claim that these are in fact goalposts for the game.
The train disappears as the smugglers divert it down a disused branch line
Branch line
A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line...
near the border, and with everybody claiming that Porter has lost his mind (there is no such team as Buggleskelly Wednesday, and Harbottle points out that the local team wouldn't leave without him as he is their centre forward). Apparently this misunderstanding causes Porter to lose his job, as no one has seen the train. Then after his co-workers talk about a tunnel on a nearby disused branch line, Porter decides to head off to track down the errant engine (in hopes of getting his job back).
The trio find the missing train inside a derelict railway tunnel, underneath a supposedly haunted windmill
Terling Windmill
Terling Windmill is a grade II listed Smock mill at Terling, Essex, England which has been converted to residential use.-History:Terling Windmill was built here c1818. It is said to have been originally built at Cressing c1770, but this has neither been proved nor disproved...
. They investigate and are briefly captured by the gun runners, but escape and climb progressively higher up the windmill until eventually they are trapped at the top.
Using the windmill sails, they contrive to get down where they hatch a plan to capture the gun runners. Coupling the carriages containing the criminals and their guns to their own engine, Gladstone, they carry them away from the border at full speed, burning everything from Harbottle's underwear to the remnants of a fence they smash through in order to keep up steam. To keep the criminals quiet, Albert climbs on top of the carriage and hits anyone who sticks their head out with a large shovel.
Porter writes a note explaining the situation and places it in Harbottle's empty 'medicine' bottle. When they pass a large station, he throws the bottle through the window of the stationmaster's office, alerting the authorities to their plight. The entire railway goes into action, with lines being closed and other trains re-routed so that Gladstone can finally crash into a siding where the waiting police force arrest the gun runners.
After a short-lived celebration, in which Harbottle points out that Gladstone is ninety years old and Porter claims it is good for another ninety, the engine explodes after its hectic journey, and Porter, Harbottle and Albert lower their hats in respect.
Cast
- Will HayWill HayWilliam Thomson "Will" Hay was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.-Early life:He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, in north east England, to William R...
as William Porter - Moore MarriottMoore MarriottMoore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
as Jeremiah Harbottle - Graham MoffattGraham MoffattGraham Moffatt was a British character actor and comedian.Born in Hammersmith, London, he is best known for a number of films where he appeared with Will Hay and Moore Marriott as 'Albert': an insolent, overweight, overgrown-schoolboy type character, loosely reminiscent of Billy Bunter.His first...
as Albert Brown - Percy WalshPercy WalshPercy Walsh was a British stage and film actor. His stage work included appearing in the London premieres of R.C.Sherriff's Journey's End and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and Appointment with Death .-Partial filmography:*The Diplomatic Lover * Dirty Work * Admirals All...
as Superintendent - Dave O'Toole as Postman
- Sebastian SmithSebastian SmithSebastian Smith was a British stage and film actor.-Filmography:* Rescued by Rover * Prehistoric Peeps * The Tramp's Dream * The Blue Carbuncle...
as Mr Trimbletow - Agnes Laughlan as Mrs Trimbletow
- Dennis WyndhamDennis WyndhamDennis Wyndham was a South African film actor. He appeared in 47 films between 1920 and 1956. He was born in Natal, South Africa....
as Grogan - Frederick PiperFrederick PiperFrederick Piper was an English actor who appeared in over 80 films and many television productions in a career spanning over 40 years. Never a leading player, Piper was usually cast in minor, sometimes uncredited, parts although he also appeared in some more substantial supporting roles...
as Ledbetter - Frederick LloydFrederick LloydFrederick Lloyd was a British film actor. He appeared as Doctor Watson in the 1932 film The Hound of the Baskervilles.Lloyd was married to actress Auriol Lee from 1911 to 1922...
as Minister
Production
Despite the majority of the film being set in Northern Ireland, none of the filming was done there—the railway station at Buggleskelly was the disused Cliddesden railway stationCliddesden railway station
Cliddesden railway station was a railway station in the village of Cliddesden, Hampshire, UK. The station was a stop on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway until its closure in 1932.-History:...
on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway
Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway
The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway was a railway in Hampshire, UK, opened on Saturday, 1 June 1901, with no formal ceremony.It was the first railway to be enabled by an Order of the Light Railway Commission under the Light Railways Act of 1896...
, which had closed to goods in 1936. Filming took place from mid-June 1937 and lasted approximately two months. The windmill
Terling Windmill
Terling Windmill is a grade II listed Smock mill at Terling, Essex, England which has been converted to residential use.-History:Terling Windmill was built here c1818. It is said to have been originally built at Cressing c1770, but this has neither been proved nor disproved...
in which Porter and his colleagues are trapped is located at Terling
Terling
Terling is a village in the county of Essex, England, between the town of Witham and the villages of Great Leighs and Hatfield Peverel. The village was mentioned in the Domesday book...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, and "Gladstone", the ancient steam train, was portrayed by No.2 Northiam 2-4-0T built by Hawthorn Leslie
Hawthorn Leslie and Company
R. & W. Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilding and locomotive manufacturer. The Company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982.-History:...
in 1899 and loaned by the Kent and East Sussex Railway
Kent and East Sussex Railway
The Kent & East Sussex Railway refers to both an historical private railway company in Kent and Sussex in England, as well as a heritage railway currently running on part of the route of the historical company.-Historical Company:-Background:...
to the film. The engine was returned to the company after completion of the film and remained in service until 1941, when it was scrapped.
The title sequence uses scenes shot at a variety of locations on the Waterloo
Waterloo station
Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex. The station is owned and operated by Network Rail and is close to the South Bank of the River Thames, and in Travelcard Zone 1....
to Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
railway line, and according to John Huntley
John Huntley (film historian)
John Frederick Huntley was a British film historian, educator and archivist.Huntley was born in Kew and entered the film industry as a teaboy at Denham Studios around 1938...
in his book Railways on Screen, "[t]he editor reversed his negative at one stage in preparing the title backgrounds, causing them to come out reversed on the final print". The scene in which Porter travels to Buggleskelly by bus, whilst being warned of a terrible danger by locals, parodies that of the Tod Browning
Tod Browning
Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
film, Dracula
Dracula (1931 film)
Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L...
(1931).
The Southern Railway of Northern Ireland that Porter works for is fictitious, in reality from the route chosen on the map the line would have belonged to the Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
The Great Northern Railway was an Irish gauge railway company in Ireland.The Great Northern was formed in 1876 by a merger of the Irish North Western Railway , Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway. The Ulster Railway was the GNRI's oldest constituent, having opened between Belfast and...
, with Buggleskelly being close to the real town of Lisnaskea
Lisnaskea
Lisnaskea is the second-biggest settlement in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 2,739 people in the 2001 Census. The town is built around the long main street, which bends at almost 90 degrees along its course.- History :...
. In addition, the Irish border on the map portrayed in the film is inaccurate, placing the border too far east, and roughly along the eastern coast of Lough Erne
Lough Erne
Lough Erne, sometimes Loch Erne , is the name of two connected lakes in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The lakes are widened sections of the River Erne. The river begins by flowing north, and then curves west into the Atlantic. The southern lake is further up the river and so is named Upper...
rather than the border of County Fermanagh
County Fermanagh
Fermanagh District Council is the only one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland that contains all of the county it is named after. The district council also contains a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore and Kilskeery road areas....
.
Reception
The film has been very well received over time:The British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
included the film in its 360 Classic Feature Films list; Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine described the movie as "amusing, if over-long", noting that there was "
TV Cream
TV Cream is a British television nostalgia site which originally appeared as The Arkhive in 1997, before adopting its current name the following year...
listed it at number 41 in its list of cinema's Top 100 Films.
The film critic Barry Norman
Barry Norman
Barry Leslie Norman, CBE is a British novelist, impresario, film critic and media personality. He was the BBC film critic on television from 1972 to 1998.-Early life:...
included it among his 100 best films of all time, and fellow critic Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm is a British film critic and historian.Malcolm was educated at Eton College and Oxford University. He worked for several decades as a film critic for The Guardian, having previously been an amateur jockey and the paper's first horse racing correspondent. In 1977, he was a member of...
also included the film in his Century of Films, describing it as "perfectly representing a certain type of bumbling British humour", despite being directed by a Parisian director.
The director Marcel Varnel considered the film as amongst his best work, and it was described in 2006 as "a comic masterpiece of the British cinema" by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in its obituary for writer, Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
.
Modern reviews
- WayBack Archive of Channel 4 Review (UK)
- Spinning Image Review
- Bootleg Files Review
- Screenonline Review
Contemporary reviews
Parody
The film was parodied in the Harry EnfieldHarry Enfield
Henry Richard "Harry" Enfield is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Norbert Smith - a Life
Norbert Smith - a Life
Norbert Smith – a Life is a spoof TV documentary film charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith. It stars Harry Enfield in the title role. It was written by Harry Enfield and Geoffrey Perkins and directed by Geoff Posner...
, as Oh, Mr Bank Robber! starring "Will Silly".