Sir, would you like a seat? Do please take one.
Would you prefer a ride on a magic carpet?
You would. Or is it your service?
Sir, what's that? A bus is more in your line.
Not on my bus. Discrimination just for the fun
of it. Come to London, that's Swinging
City and see the sights. It's today's big laughter maker
Keith Charlie and 14 top line stars to show you why.
Here are just some of them. Michael Benteen is a sandwich
man in swinging London I. Want gold?
Harry H Corbett, the stage doorkeeper, A swinging
photographer. Bernard Cribbins, You'll meet
Diana Doors, Ian Henry and as a horty horticulturist, Stanley
Holloway. At the London Hilton you'll meet
Wilfred Hyde White. And lower down the scale you'll
laugh with Michael Medwith. There's Ron Moody, Terry Thomas.
I think I message you and went, oh, there's a film I think we
need to add to the list. And then about a month or two
later, you've got in touch Tyler, and we're like, oh, do
you want to come on Goon pod and do it for this?
Oh, OK, Which is really nice. Because I've been on OK, look,
we're talking or I may as well just say hello and welcome to
Goon Pod. OK, because we're we're, we're
already talking about the film. I'll ditch my intro.
I'll just say I'm I'm delighted to be joined by Robert Heath or
Rob Heath and Guy Walker. The chaps behind the podcast of
Britcom goes to the movies. Hello, Tyler.
Thank you for having us on. Well, I was on your show, wasn't
I recently talking about a Peter Sellers film?
Which means I won't be able to cover it on this show, The Mouse
That Roared. And you're on to talk about a
film that you won't be able to cover on your show.
Why don't you just put our episode on your RSS feed and we
can do some better numbers? Oh.
I could do that. I could do that.
Yeah, and if you want to do less, well, we'll put you on
ours. Well, you've only just not
you're a relatively new podcast. You've only been going, what,
less than 12 months? Yeah, it's.
Just about 12 months now, isn't it?
Our anniversary is coming up, isn't it Rob?
Yeah. So it, yeah, October 2023, the
first episode came out. I think we first, well, why you
conceive the idea ages ago, guy. And then we first spoke about it
in August last year when I was down in Leeds working.
And then it very quickly snowballed from there, didn't
it? Yeah, we got our list together.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It started off as an idea I had
probably during lockdown. I was want to do a podcast and
then we were just chatting about podcasts.
Weren't you when you were up popping me around there?
We were sat outside having a drink and then talked about it
and the next thing. Two months later we, well, maybe
less than two months later, actually, end of August, we were
doing our first episode. Lesbian Vampire Killers.
I think we made the we made the mistake of recording episodes
very quickly before planning to release them, which we've since
gone, if anything, too far the other way, recording the months
in advance. Yeah, well, I mean, starting off
with such a crowd pleaser. Lesbian vampires.
Well, that's what we thought would give the people what they
don't, what? They want it's not big, So what?
What? OK.
Just give us a elevator pitch in terms of what the podcast is
about. So I mean, I would best describe
it as I I often heard Mark Kermode talk about on the Buses
and and the On the buses movies and them being the kind of
exemplifier of the rule to making a spin off movie of a
popular sitcom. And then that rule is that
sitcom is always shit. And we said, well, that that
just definitely can't be the case.
So began to make a list of sitcom spin offs to movies or,
or, or TV comedy character spin off to movies.
And we thought, yeah, we like some of these.
Some of these we've never seen, but we've heard a terrible.
But I don't think there is a, there can be a cast iron rule
about this. And gradually we started to find
some spurious ways of attaching television beginnings to some
classic British comedy films. But we, we try, we, we link
every every film to ATV series or, or character.
And then we'll talk about that series and, and then we'll talk
about the film. It's pretty much as simple as
that. And then we rank them all as as
classic middle-aged men would do we make a list?
And absolutely, yeah. And making lists is what men do
in preference order. And you, you mentioned lesbian
vampire killers. That was our very first episode.
And so it was our very first number one and also our very
first bottom of the pile. And it's still at time of
recording, bottom of the pile. I don't know when this is.
This is going out. We might have had a few episodes
out by then, but actually all of the episodes we've recorded for
Series 3 so far, nothing, because nothing is usurped it.
And the some that have come close.
Well, I haven't seen it and I have no intention of seeing it.
It's got cordon in, isn't it? Yeah, Harman Kardon.
So it's there, yeah. So what have you learnt in in
your journey through sitcom, spin off movies and the like?
What what have you learned along the way?
I think one of the big things that we've learnt is that it's
people who and who are good at writing TV but not good at
making or write who are not going to write in films.
And I think that's the thing. And it's like it's such a
difficult medium to get right. And also a lot of the directors
that the best, the better films seem to have good directors,
whereas the ones that aren't as good have kind of job in
directors or hack might be a bit of a strong word in some cases.
But yeah, it's it's that really, I think the better films seem to
have better people making them. Well, our current top three is
directed by are directed by Edgar Wright, Ben Wheatley and
Terry Gilliam, aren't they? So you know that that kind of
proves what you're saying. I'd also say one of one of the
very kind of small patterns that we've noticed is particularly
with sitcom spin offs, as they take, they'll take a character
and that character becomes a much worse version, not only in
in how it's written, but the the sort of person that character
is. You know, when people talk about
being the best versions of themselves, it's quite often the
the worst version. So let's say the example of Jay
in The Inbetweeners, who's a who's a bit of a lovable idiot
in the TV series has a considerable more nasty streak
in the film. And and that's something that
seems to be magnified quite a lot.
We've said the same, didn't we, about Robin in the Man about the
House movie, which I know is a film that you've you've profiled
as well. So it see it, but it seems to be
something that comes up a lot. Yeah.
Can we put to bed this canard that all all British sitcom spin
offs in the 70s they always went on holiday abroad.
Can we put to put to bed that? Because that that's happened in
maybe 3 films and in fact holiday on the buses they stay
in Britain. Yeah, so.
So we so our first episode of our next series is on the buses
with John Rain from Smash Pod, who I believe has been on
brilliant on your show as well. He was brilliant as as we
expected. And yeah, so that was our first
foray into on the buses. It's been a bit of a running
joke up to this point that we've not been looking forward to it.
OK, so hang on. Are you saying you'd never seen
any on the buses? No, it's.
Correct. Yeah, I'd not seen it.
I just heard how bad it was. Maybe I was being a bit unfair
to call myself middle-aged. Tyler we're we're both 39, so
we're just below the threshold and well below that kind of
generation of people who would have grown up.
So John Rain, for example, is the the perfect example.
You know, he's someone who great, he's 10 years, 8 or 10
years older than us. So he would have grown up
watching on the buses or even repeats of on the buses.
And then by the time we were watching TVI don't think it was
on at all. Was it or tucked away on Granada
men and motors maybe. Well, let me just say, is there
a more despicable, In fact, I don't think there is or has been
a more despicable human being in the world of British sitcoms
than than Jack from On the Buses.
I I've been trying to agree with you.
Yeah, we're, we're asked to like him, aren't we?
And I think he's an asshole. Who, in the service of getting
his end away, is prepared to sell his best mate up the river?
There's absolutely no redeeming features.
Throughout the film, I actually found myself siding with Blakey,
which dead. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's trying to do his job. He's got a job to do.
He wants people to, he wants the bus drivers to do their job.
And what's wrong with that? Yeah, and he's, and he's the one
who's giving women the job to drive the buses.
But no, we're meant to hit him for the affairs of equality.
Jess, he had, he has two catchphrases, I think, or maybe
3. Blakey, there's obviously I hate
you, Butler. There's also.
Isn't it marvellous, eh? Isn't it marvellous?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we had to watch some of the TV episodes, but the system was
one that we we, we watched. That was one that John had
recommended to us. Which the.
System starts off starts off with a lot of promise in
comparison to the episodes I'd already watched.
And I thought, oh this is going to be a bottle episode.
This is the middle of the night them trying to replace a toilet
system. And I thought this has the
potential to be a a good bottle episode of the sitcom.
And then just quickly just becomes like all the others
after the 1st 5 minutes. Yeah.
And there used to be a thing that dads all over the country
would always point out, oh, you know that Olive?
And on on the buses, the actress is actually very attractive.
Yeah. What's her name?
Anna. Karen was obviously made-up to
look. And she was more or less
domestic abuse going on in that in that relationship, not
physical, but mental. Yeah, it's very dark.
Aided and abetted by her mother and brother as well.
Yeah, her 50 odd year old brother.
Yes, it was still pulling the Dolly birds.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, look, this isn't the On the Buses podcast, so chaps,
thank you so much. We we kind of alluded to it
before I came on your show to talk about a Peter Sellers film,
which is the remit of this show. And you, you've come on my show
to talk about a film which would be very much in your wheelhouse
in as much as it is it it, it came about off the back of
Michael Bentine's television series.
It's a square world. Basically.
It's a it's a film. How would I describe this?
It's got such a labyrinthine plot, so many, so many twists
and turns and subtle narrative misdirections that trying to sum
it up in a pity few words is is not going to be easy.
But I'm going to give it a go. OK, so we're talking about the
1966 film The Sandwich Man starring Michael Bentine.
So a man walks around London one day and chats to a few people
and some stuff happens and his pigeon wins a race.
That's pretty much the film, isn't it?
That's. It in a nutshell before you.
Watched it because you've never seen this film before and Fat
Rob, you'd never heard of it before.
Did you have any precon? Did you have any preconceptions?
Did you have any Did? What did you expect going into
this film? I thought, I think, I thought
that it was going to be like that film The Plank.
Where? Yeah, I.
Was expecting something a bit like that but I thought he was
literally made sandwiches so I thought he was like a guy trying
to deliver sandwiches to people and it was like.
Following this this. Guy without looking into it.
So I was a bit surprised when it was a guy with a sandwich board
walking around London. I was expecting a lot of what I
saw though, certainly in terms of structure.
You know, as you say, coming from his TV show, it has a very
sketches stitched together feel to it.
And a similar way. I'm going to this may be
sacrilegious to a lot of people. And I'm, I'm comparing it merely
in terms of structure, in a similar way to Holy Grail, which
we recorded an episode of recently in that it is a series
of sketches stitched together with a, a Lucish plot to make a
film, one done in a much better way than the other.
I would suggest not. That's not to say that I didn't
like a lot of the sketches in Sandwich Man, but I also didn't
like a lot of the sketches in The Sandwich Man, if that makes
sense. Some of them I thought were
great, and some of them I thought were badly conceived.
Yes, mediocre had have have you ever seen any episodes of What
Survive of It's a Square World? No, my dad used to talk about it
a lot so and and still does, to be fair.
So I think he was a bit of a fan so he would tell me about the
sketches. But when it came to kind of
researching for this episode, there's very little out there.
And I just listened to the the LP that is Square World.
Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Produced by George Martin. Oh wow, very good.
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I enjoyed quite a bit of it.
To be fair. There's a lot of goon type
voices there in that there's there's a, there's a line in one
of the sketches that sounds like Blue Bottle and there's a few
like William Cobbler's Mate as well.
Yeah, yeah. Which I was like, oh, and
there's another one that sounded a bit like Echols.
So I was a bit kind of thrown by those.
But yeah, I enjoyed it. Yeah, think about it.
There's there's not that many episodes survive TV episodes.
But I would say he was very good at coming up with concepts, but
adding the humour sometimes. Was it more of a challenge?
And so you'd find yourself watching some of his TV show,
some of the sketches. Most of them, I would say you
certainly wouldn't be laughing. You'd be maybe smiling or
smirking or or much. Like he is throughout the film,
Yeah. Maybe thinking, well, you know,
because he because he's very good at at little devices and
little things like that. Sometimes you'd be sort of
thinking that's clever the way you've put that together, but
not actually finding it amusing, you know, And I think with this
film, I don't really know what what the end point was for
mentee with this film essentially, apart from with one
notable exception, he's just this bland central character
around whom all the the hesitate to use word action around whom
all the action occurs. You know my.
Old friends. Sir Malcolm Moleskin.
Sir Mervin Moleskin, Ozil Mervin.
A bit of a badge. Shaking his head again.
What's going on with my photography?
Aren't you? But tell me where we are then.
Quilby. Horace Quilby, Sir.
Of course, Sir. Horace Quilby.
A hero. Shake hands, Shake hands.
Shake hands with him. He's about to do so.
He's a hero. He's the greatest big sticker in
the Northwest Front. Yeah.
Because it's not even like it's like a showcase for him.
It's more just he links everything together in a way.
And it made me think because I I watched this first and then went
to listen to the It's Square World LP and it made me think,
was he just a link man or like it's a square world a bit like
Chris Morris on the day today or something?
Or was he doing like a lot more? He was certainly the link man,
but he was also appearing in sketches.
But there was. But to be fair, he did have a
supporting cast of people like Frank Thornton, Clive Dunn,
who'd be given a lot to do. But no, no, he was quite front
and centre in in It's a Square World.
Yeah. It's just, it's an odd idea for
a film. I mean, it's certainly, as I
always say on the show, it's got loads of faces, it's got loads
of people that we can talk about.
The film was released in right in the middle of the World Cup,
July 66. But I believe it was filmed
right the sort of the fag end of 65 into 6 early 66.
And it was released in other territories.
Not I mean, it was the sandwich Man in the UK.
In other countries, it was known as that swinging city and
swinging London was very much the zeitgeist around this time.
I mean, we'll come to we'll come to the question of does the film
reflect that a little bit later? But it was made off the bat
because my understanding is that Peter Sellers knew the producer
of this film, Peter Newbrook, and introduce Benteen to Peter
Newbrook and Benteen pitched this idea and Benteen and the
business partner of Peter Newbrook, Robert Hartford Davis,
not to script together and Hartford Davis went on to direct
it. Now, do you know, actually,
before we go into that, do you know much about, did you guys
know much about Benteen in general before you saw this
film? No, Sir, I like again, like a
big fan of the goons and particularly sellers and and
then Milligan, But Benteen was always the one that I felt
didn't know much about because there's not much surviving of
his sort of input in the goons. So I've never heard, never heard
anything that he that he did with them.
Only like some clips and I saw a bit of his.
Well, I guess it'd be like the the chair back routine that I
watched as well, which kind of didn't really transfer over.
I don't think to to like modern audiences.
To me, it felt a bit like that alternative comedy night in the
Phoenix, nights where all those people.
It used to slay them in the 40s though, that I know.
I just didn't understand it and I was like, is it me?
He's the most fascinating member, member of the goons in
the sense that his life is just, he was half Peruvian and his
father and his grandfather were, had been, I think was his
grandfather had been president of Peru at some point, something
like that. And and he was, he'd been in MI
6 during the war. He helped liberate Bergen Belsen
and he got into all sorts. I mean, he was just such a he
was one of these sort of Renaissance men that would just,
you know, canoe up the Amazon and just be always doing things.
And then he just kind of got into spiritualism as he got as
he got older. And he also had some tragedy in
his life. A couple of his children died
and he got into spiritualism and but but yeah, a very full life,
extremely full life. And but but when it comes.
And he was successful as a comedian, but after this film,
he didn't really do a hell of a lot in terms of.
You know, he did the, he did Potty Time in the 70s, which was
a kids show and he did the odd thing here and there on TV, but
he never made another film and he didn't really capitalise I
suppose on his talents. So was.
This How did this perform? I mean, was any of that down to
the reception of this film producing during the World Cup?
Not a good idea, surely? No, it didn't really.
It didn't do well at all. So, yeah, so he never made
another film. But according to the producer of
the film, Peter Newbrook, Ben team was very difficult to work
with on this film. Very demanding, very
argumentative, demanding to be, to have input on every aspect of
the film. That might be another answer
then. Yeah, yeah.
So in in the end, I think they somehow kind of, they didn't
fire him, of course they couldn't fire him, but they kind
of sidelined him to stop him from interfering.
I'm not quite sure how they did that.
But anyway, I hadn't seen this film for many, many, many years
and I think I've only seen really seen bits of it.
So I've watched it twice now for the purposes of this and it it's
it, it begins quite promisingly, this film, doesn't it?
Because we get a couple of Indian stereotypes, Yeah.
I was a bit worried when they popped up.
Tyler, can I? Can I just?
Go back to something I liked before.
That comes in the very, very, very first shot, the shot of the
sun over the over the London skyline, well before the music
kicks in. I thought I've accidentally put
on The Exorcist because it's slightly bigger, like the bit in
Iraq when? Max once said I was.
An Iraq in The Exorcist. I was like, oh, hang on, what's
what film's this? And then yeah, down.
It's London. And then the music comes in.
It's like, oh, OK, this definitely isn't The Exorcist.
Freaking. Freaking has obviously watched a
Sandwich Man and nicked that from, well Ben.
Team not. Not the only bit of this film
that reminded me of a of a horror film, but I'll get to
that bit later on. Cool, look forward to that.
I like the music as well when it kicks in, when we have the
skyline shot of London. That was good.
It's music by Mike Vickers from Manfred Mann.
Didn't know that. Yeah, I'm not sure about all the
music, but largely the school used by Mike Vickers.
Also the director, Robert Hartford Davis had directed a
few kind of musical films like Gonks Go Beat, which is
brilliant. That's not brilliant.
Actually, it's rubbish, Gonks Go Beat, but it's it's it's got
Frank Thornton and it's got Kenneth Connor and it's got
Ginger Baker from Cream before he was in Cream.
Oh wow, Charlie from Casualty, isn't it brilliant?
He also directed a film called The Yellow Teddy Bears.
What's that? Which which is I can't it's,
it's like a school sit under girls school or something like
that, Something like that. I can't remember exactly.
I've never seen it. But it's chiefly remembered
today as being an early film that was pitched to The Beatles
for The Beatles to to appear in it.
Oh. Wow and.
They they didn't end up being in it, which I think was probably
wise sounds like. Yeah, sounds like it.
We've got these two Indian stereotypes, as I, as I said
right at the beginning, Ram and and Ram and Gogi.
I think the names are it's obviously it's 2 white men in
brown face, of course, because that was D rigger Leon Thao.
He later worked with Michael Bentin on potty time.
He'd worked with him in a square world as well.
And then he went on to become a very successful director.
And the other guy browned up is Hugh Fletcher, who was in a load
of Carry On films like Carry On, at Your convenience and that
sort of thing. And they're off.
They're going off to a Jazz Festival and they're known as D
seekers with the obviously. Yeah, yeah.
And I spent the whole film thinking that was a too as, as
being too highbrow. I was thinking that was a a pun
on, you know, the Italian film director Vittorio de Seeker,
Bicycle Thieves. I was thinking, I was thinking
that it's not the Seekers, isn't it?
My I mean, apart from the obvious massive disappointment
of these two characters, the other disappointment about this
storyline is they never actually get to the Jazz Festival.
I wanted to see some of the jazz.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead Benteen, also in brown
face as a different character, fleeces them more or less,
doesn't he? The one thing I'd say, though,
this beginning was the because you have them, you have Roger
Delgado, who later famous from Doctor Who as AI.
Guess he's meant to be like an Egyptian carpet.
Yeah, Egyptian or something. He's wearing a fez, isn't he?
So yeah. Yeah, and Bert Kwok is a comedy.
Comedy Chinese man. Yeah.
And then the. Music changes, Doesn't it to be
have sort of oriental inflections when he comes on to
screen? Yes, of course.
Yes, Which they always did back then.
But one thing that we find, I mean, it's not love thy
neighbour. There's no culture clashes in
this film. There's, there's a lot of
harmony, there's openness, there's, you know,
inclusiveness. There's no overt racism or
anything like that. And in the publicity for the
film, the publicity states that Londoners might equally be
wearing bowlers, turbans, saris or blue jeans.
So it's basically it's a big old melting pot.
You know, that's the kind of the message the film is trying to to
make, I think particularly. On the street.
On the street where Benteen lives, that's the yes.
Yes, very. Multicultural.
Yeah, very multicultural, isn't it on there.
And I think that's a lot of the film as well.
It's quite good for that. Well.
My my good friends, I've got a couple of mates who who have a
podcast, although it's been in hiatus for quite a number of
years now, podcasts called Jaffa Cakes of Proust.
They covered this film many years ago, The Sandwich Man, and
they called it a love letter to multiculturalism, making jokes
about race that won't hurt, that are inclusive because like the
two Indian gentlemen at the beginning, they're arguing about
their favorite football teams. They're not separate.
They're they're fully sort of what's the word immersed in
British society. But they also said on this
podcast that 80% of the scenes in this film could be removed
without without damaging the plot, what there is of it.
And they and they didn't like the Norman Wisdom bit which.
Guy Guy is in agreement there. I didn't mind.
I didn't mind the Norman Wisdom bit, but yeah, Guy hated it.
I. Quite like the Norman Wisdom
bit. I'll get it out of the way now.
Go on. Let's get into it, should we?
Get on to that now because we're just going to go all over the
place. But the the northern Wisdom bit
was expanded because originally it was only meant to be a short
bit. But the clout that wisdom had,
he said, no, I want I want more screen time.
So they had to read they had to expand it and make it last.
It was about 1010 minutes or so, wasn't it, that that sequence,
Because most of these sequences, which are just more like little
brief little skits, they're more or less maybe 345 minutes long
at most. But you have Father Norman
Wisdom, who's a boxing vicar at a boys club, which was a bit
worrying. Yeah, Yeah.
He he was a boxer. He was the British Army
flyweight champion. Yeah, so.
Yeah, there was. There was an actual boxer, so
you know all of that stuff. Knew what he was doing, then I.
Think it's, you know, one of the many reasons he was good at
physical comedy, wasn't it, As a proper athlete.
Have you ever, I've never seen the Norman Wisdom film.
Ever, I mean. Me neither I.
Have but a long, long time ago. Yeah.
I, I couldn't say with any authority about any of his
films. I mean, I, I, I've, I've seen
Lee Evans in films. That's basically the same thing,
right? That's.
Right. Yeah, Yeah, I was.
Going to say one of the reasons why I probably didn't like this
was I'm not a fan of Lee Evans either Sir.
Apart from in something about Mary, though, he's brilliant in
that. Yeah, yeah, that by the the one
exception to the rule. OK, so so guy, why?
Why? What was it about the Norman
Wisdom bit, that sequence that you found off putting?
I think it's probably, and it's going to sound weird in this
film, but it was pointless. And I know there's a lot of
things in this film that are pointless.
At least they don't stay out, stay, they're welcome.
Whereas one of my kind of biggest bug bears is like, plot
contrivances. So.
And I know that that's part of a movie, but you shouldn't be able
to see the mechanics. But I was just watching going
well, it's obvious that normal wisdom just wanted to do all
this stuff of hanging off monkey bars and upside down and getting
himself into a pickle that he looked like he could easily get
himself out of. And that's the whole point of
this bit. And it went on too long, as
you've said. Yeah.
That that was the main bit.
It just kind of wound me up. I'd.
Say out stays it's well out stays it's welcome is a fair
comment because it is double that and you you feel it being
double the length of all the other bits because at least if
you don't like another bit, it's going to be done pretty quickly
is. It the back splits, you're
wanting to learn you're. Facing the wrong way for the
back splits father. Would you be after asking me or
telling me what to do? Kisses Father.
Quiet now, Colin all. I want to know father is this.
Yeah, I'm just having never seen a Norman Wisdom film, I've never
really taken any interest in him at all as a performer.
I was quite impressed by his comedy business.
Very adept. Did it make you want to watch
anymore? Oh.
Well, should we move on? I was going to say my.
One big memory of Norman Wisdom as a kid or as a teenager was
because he's massive in Albania, isn't he?
Because the Albanian dictator was a was a big fan, so the FA
took him out. When England played Albania away
for the first time in a World Cup qualifier, the FA took him
with the team. They paraded him around the
around the pitch before the match and the noise.
Were in a in a cage what was around hoarding the.
Fans and maybe doing a few kind of comedy, comedy pratfalls.
Yeah. They put.
Him in an England kit. I do you know what I think I
mean? This may be me just making this
memory up in my head, but I'm sure he was wearing 1/2 and half
England now. I need a kid.
I might be completely making that up in my own head, but
there's something about that that rings true.
Hope you're right, might have listeners.
Listeners right in if you know, I used to go to school with
someone who his his only talent, if you like, was going all the
time going Oh, Mr. Grimsdale, which I'm reliably informed or I
was reliably informed was a Norman Wisdom kind of catch
these. You are Mr. Grimsdale, Oh.
How we hated that lad at school. Oh, he didn't.
Endear himself to his classmates?
No. Yes, I've just found it.
Half England, half Albania with this flat cap on.
I'm going to. I'm going to send the image to
the chat. Very good.
OK. Actually, while you're doing
that, do you think this was this possibly Bentin's attempt to
make a British? It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
Yes, definitely, I thought. That, yeah.
And but the one but the one kind of parody removed from that, I
was thinking of The Simpsons 22 Short Tales about Springfield,
which has a lot of direct mad mad mad mad worlds bits in it.
Doesn't it as well? Well, it's even.
Got I think it's got Phil Silver's in a cameo.
Yeah. Do you know what?
I think I do think that's that might also be another.
So I'm again confusing 2 episodes in my head.
The one with the the cat burglar home.
Of the vigilante home of the. Vigilante that.
Yes, the second-half of that is entirely mad.
Bad, bad, bad world. That's right.
Yeah, that's right. OK.
Have you ever seen a sandwich man in the wild?
Like someone actually with a sandwich board walking up and
down the street? Not for.
It not for a long time. I.
Don't think so. I'm trying to think now it
doesn't. No, I can't have were.
They were they replaced by in the sort of 80s and 90s by men
holding big golf sales. Yeah, I thought that people with
arrows and Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Must have. I'm trying to think what
replaces If it was it then that replaced the sandwich man?
Was it just billboards? Why did they die out?
I used to read British comics when I was a kid, and so my my
idea of what went on in British life was informed by reading
these British kids comics. And I used to think that every
major city in Britain had at least one gloomy looking man
walking down the street with the Ender's nigh on a on a sandwich
board. Yeah.
We still have those people. They're just sort of ranting in
shopping precincts now. Now on.
Twitter Yeah, we, we, we get the, the, the, the, the, the
questionable content out of the way quite quickly at the
beginning. And then we see Bentin as Horace
Quilby, who is the sandwich man of the title.
He's very well dressed and he, he advertises a gentleman's
Outfitters and he keeps racing pigeons.
And there's a pigeon called Esmeralda who is in the
processor is in the middle of a a race or what?
What do pigeons do? They are racing pigeons, aren't
they? Yeah, quite.
I don't quite know what was going on but she was on on route
somewhere is. She coming back from France is
that, is that right? I think it's yeah, they're
expecting about from France and he's yeah.
Right. Waiting and speaks to Dora Brian
in one of my favourite scenes in the film.
Oh, she's. Giving him the glad eye, isn't
she? She's beating the carpet next
door. Not half.
Yeah, well, she's getting rid of that pent up frustration.
Exactly because she's a wheel tappers with her.
I'm a wheel tappers with her. Mr. Quilby.
That felt, really. Modern, that that exchange, that
dialogue felt quite modern and just the uncomfortable shifting
in your seat nature of it, it yeah, felt a bit, well, not that
The Office is modern anymore, I guess, but particularly with the
Ricky Gervais's attitude trajectory.
But you know, it's kind of it's the one piece in the film that
feels much more of contemporary comedy.
Yeah. It's got it's got some nice
person to it and it feels like they kind of let it breathe and
play out, whereas some of the other scenes feel a little bit
rushed, whereas they kind of let her kind of chew the scenery a
bit, which is kind of knife but ice.
When she's talking about my white washing and talking about
the what is it, the birds flying over?
It's just not dazzling white anymore, which is just those
great bits. So yeah, I really enjoyed those.
Oh, and there's a line where she goes that she, that he's got his
pigeons and I've got my bingo. All of those nice little moments
that you don't really get much else off, I don't think.
And she? She's undressing him with her
eyes as she's as she's speaking to him.
I love the way nice little comic touched by Ben team.
When she met she just mentions her late husband and as she as
she does so, he just gently raises his hat out of respect.
Yeah, that's right. I I wish there'd been a a few
more cutaways to Benteen's reaction because he seems to be
doing a bit of acting himself like reacting, which is.
Not something you could say about the rest of the film.
I, I, I would say too much bloody Benteen reaction in the
rest of the film, not enough of it.
And that's, I think that's his best, his best bit of acting it.
Probably is actually his. Reaction His uncomfortable
reaction to her advances is is very well played, I thought.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do like the way that, yeah, that, that as he
walks away, she kind of licks her lips.
Yeah, I thought it was great. And then she talks about her
husband being a a, a big man, absolutely massive.
Probably Arthur Mallard, yes. I mean, I'm not one to gramble
my late husband Percy. He would bear witness to that
fact. I'm.
Quite sure of that. Yes, that's what I like about
you, your sympathy and your understanding.
I suppose it's because, well, you are a widower yourself.
Oh, I know you've got your pigeons and I've got my bingo,
but, well, when you've been married, it's it's not really
enough. Not really.
No, I mean I'm not grumbling.
British Railways have been more than generous with the pension,
but it can be lonely being a wheel tap as widow.
I'm sure you're not. A bit like my late person,
really. No.
Oh, he was massive. Simply massive.
Massive. Big man you.
Expect that the film's going to climax.
That's the right word with the two of them getting it on, or at
least the 1966 equivalent of them getting together.
But they don't spoilers, but at least I don't think they do.
We never find out. But anyway.
But he gives he gives her. So he's waiting for he's waiting
for news of as morale to the pigeon and he gives Dora Bryan a
list of telephone numbers because obviously it didn't have
mobile phones back then. Listener So there you go.
And he he he goes to the bus stop.
He meets Sue, played by Susie Kendall.
Now, did you know anything about Susie Kendall?
Yeah, I'd seen her in a few films.
She was back to Dudley Moore. Yeah, she was in To Serve With
Love with Sidney Poitier and Lulu, which I've I liked, and
then Up the Junction as well, like a kind of late 60s sort of
kitchen sink drama about a rich girl trying to slum it.
Working in a factory, which was good.
And then she kind of disappeared, although I think
she did a what is it a horror? An Italian horror movie in the
70s? Yeah.
An Argento 1, I think so. I thought you were right.
OK. Well, I should really know more.
All I knew was yeah, Dudley Moore's ex-wife.
She's perfectly fine in this film.
She's perfectly fine. I found the bird with the
crystal plumage. Oh, I've seen that.
Yeah, I've not seen that one, but she was I.
I've not seen it, no. But yeah, I'm going to have to
watch it now. I saw.
It because somebody lent it to me.
I don't know why. I can't remember why.
And it's one of those films. You ever get those films?
Probably this one. You ever get those films where
the moment it ends, you've forgotten it?
Yeah, yeah. We've we've seen a few of them
on our podcast Quest, Yeah. Yeah, there's been a lot.
Yeah, I thought she was. I thought she was quite good in
this. He's one of the through lines of
the film, her and some guy who's a bit of a tough cold Stephen
who drives a soft top sports car.
Yes, who I've never seen before or since.
The actor's called David Buck and the whole there's only one
kind of ongoing plot line throughout this film, which is
their relationship. Her and the bloke in the car and
and Harold Quilby is kind of trying to be trying to not be a
matchmaker, but trying to sort of patch things up between them
and. And he succeeds, but that's the
only thing that's verging on being a plot, Yeah.
But he and I keep thinking that Benteen's character seems to be
far too invested in their relationship.
And yeah, but it's never really explained why.
It's very odd, no? No, yeah.
He just likes, just likes to watch.
Young love, that's what that's what that sounds like.
That's. It but they have an argument and
then there's a bit in this bus queue where there's quite an, an
idea I quite like where they're arguing and there's all the
passengers waiting for the bus who are looking back and
forward. But the the issue with it is
he's just the one doing the talking.
But they keep looking from 1:00 to another.
And she just sort of hoofs at one point.
And I thought it was a good idea.
Not quite executed as well as it could have been, but I like the
idea of it, yeah. That could be the tagline for
this film, Yes, a good idea is. Not quite.
As excluded as well as they could have been.
Yeah. So the bus, the bus comes along,
we get the two Indian gentlemen again and.
And Earl Cameron as the bus conductor.
Bernard, the bus conductor who was one of the first prominent
black actors in British cinema. Earl Cameron he was he was in
films like Sapphire and he he died at the the grand old age of
102. Wow, relatively recently, but
nausea Powell as the bus driver he was.
Also in On the Buses, the movie. Yeah, he was.
I think he, he was never credited that.
He's in loads of British films, but never credited.
He was always when they needed kind of muscle, they needed some
muscle in a film, they'd get nausea.
Powell and they. Actually call him Nosher as
well, don't they? In the in in this.
Yes, and there's a traffic jam and and a Rolls Royce collides
with a cyclist. We're just going to be talking
about all the different people in this.
But you've got John Junkin is the chauffeur of the Rolls Royce
and he's collided with the cyclist, which is Ian Hendry.
Was going to say Stephen Hendry, Ian Henry.
That would be interesting. Ian Hendry.
Now, I love Ian Hendry, so a bit of a sad life and and what would
you say? A lot of potential to be a much
bigger star than he ended up being.
But I think a lot of that was down to alcohol dependency and
and whatnot. But he's been in so many great
films. I always think of him from Get
Carter. Oh.
Yeah, me too with that. That that famous line, what's he
called? He's called Eric.
And Michael Caine takes the sunglasses off and he says
pistols in the snow. It's.
Brilliant. Yeah.
He was in repulsion as well. Yeah.
I was thinking repulsion. Yeah, now this, this bit with in
the Sandwich Man with Ian Henry. He he's knocked off his bike.
What's your? Game swerving in like that.
I didn't understand this at all. The the the cyclist goes into
the cop shop and then comes around the corner on a motorbike
and he's a he's a police officer.
I didn't get it at first it completely.
I was thinking, is that meant to be Ian Henry playing two
different parts? I didn't, I didn't get it.
Did you guys get it like? Very similar.
Yeah, well, I just watched it again and I only got it the
second time round, and maybe I wasn't paying enough attention
the first time around, but I actually found it funnier.
Funnier the second time round because I understood what was
going on, yeah. Oh, I feel like I got it the the
first time. I thought it was one of the I
thought it was a good bit. I liked I quite liked it that
bit him coming back out and then being like sycophantic, like oh,
no, yes, hello, hello, officer, as he's sort of yes, he's
writing him a ticket. I thought it was quite well
done. Quilby goes to this cafe, this
greasy spoon frequented by misfits of society I suppose,
and and fellow sandwich men. And you've got John Lemes in
there. Is Abadiah born in Abadiah?
Good. Morning Acts 3 and 4.
Horace, I would like you to meet our new recruit, Mr. George
Pocket. He's with Fred's nude sexer
Honor. They are daughters of Felicia,
painted and ungodly. But who are we to judge them?
However, Mr. Pocket, this is Mr. Quilby, our honorary secretary.
What I've been telling you about.
Brilliant. One of the.
Best things about the film for me.
His. His delivery of Fred's nude
sexorama is chefs kiss. And the way he pronounces Mr.
George Pocket is amazing as well he's doing.
A bit of a he's doing a bit of a dot Cotton voice, I think.
East End. East End Trying to sound posh,
Yeah. OK.
Dot con or dare I say Russell Brand.
Warren Mitchell was pretty good as Sid the Gypsy Tea, tea leaf
reader, whatever you want to call him.
Yeah. I didn't recognize him at first
and then. The credits.
Came up as like, Oh yes, of course.
No. And and he he would have, I
think he would have been into his first year playing Elf
garnet when this was made. Berlin's Gate Fish Market.
Yeah. Doors and Anna Quail gossiping
about Doctor Kildare versus Doctor Ben Casey.
I really. Like this bit, it reminded me of
like a Carolina Hearn sketch from the fascia did this the way
them two are kind of just riffing for like again, it's
totally pointless. But I really I just really liked
it. And even the sort of intercut
end of fish guts being cut out was just yeah, me neither.
But it felt like it was out of a different film did that.
Doors Doors was was 34 and there were there were newspaper
reports of of how drab and dowdy she looked in this film.
They don't. Change, do they?
They're Bridge Press, yeah. Going to say, isn't that the
point? She's not going to be the
glamour girl character in this Bizarre.
Yeah. Yeah, but also.
Does she really look that dragon down?
No, she looks. Great.
No, she does she. Looks great.
Yeah, she. Looks really good.
She just got her buddy headscarf on and a a good coat and she's
still might just look good. So, yeah, yeah.
Like a male online headline. Anna Quayle, of course, who is
my favorite bit of A Hard Day's Night is the Anna Quayle
sequence with John Lennon. I do meet him on the stairs, I
do. Love that bit.
Yeah, when she's like, yeah, she looks more like him than I do
Last. Yeah, and she was in, she was in
Casino Royale with Ronnie Corbett as her stooge, of
course. Yes, I love.
That bit Ronnie Corbett, anything he shows up in, oh,
he's always pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got the the two fishmongers.
What? You know those hats they're
wearing as well? I.
Asked this in my nuts. Those.
Weird hats they're wearing that look like sort of hubcaps.
Yeah, I don't. Understand it.
And then, yeah, then we have the bit with the woman's handbag
getting caught up. She's called Tracy Crisp.
I looked her up. What a what a great name.
She yeah, I believe she was meant to be the next big thing
and there was quite a lot of publicity around her tiny little
bit in this film. Well, they were trying to they
were trying to talk her up, if you know what I mean, in the in
the in the media, in the papers and whatnot.
And then I I believe she didn't just she just kind of
disappeared about Trace didn't didn't make it as a shame.
I kind of want to look her up and find out I might be wrong.
Sorry, Tracy. Chris.
But so many fascinating shots. Snapshot of mid 60s London.
In glorious colour that is. One of my favorite things I
think about the film is the fact that it's all kind of shot on
location and you just get to see London back in the mid 60s.
That and I, I went on real streets and I was looking up a
lot of the places to see if they were still, if they still
existed now. And unfortunately a lot of them
are gone billing. Billing Skate Market still
exists, but it's considerably more hipsterfied now than it
would have been in 1966. Well, I, I didn't write this
down, but I, I'm sure I read somewhere that if it, if this
was true, if this was based on fact, in terms of his actual
journey on this one day, it would be a journey of about 100
miles. I did wonder, I thought, is it?
Is it true to life? No, he does.
Seem to know everyone in central London as well.
Or everyone in central London knows him?
Yes. Yeah, no, it was 100% location
shooting and it was tricky getting permission to film in
certain areas. So they had to, they had an ice
cream van. I'm not sure if it's the same
one that was in the film, but they had an ice cream van with
blacked out windows for certain shots that they could so they
could get away with filming in certain like the London Hilton
and places like that. That's I mean.
That's like Rocky. There's, there's there's story
about Rocky, this scenes where he's jogging through the streets
and people are throwing stuff at him.
That's all for real. And they were, they were kind of
how was it in a, in a covered van doing that?
Yeah. Oh.
Wow, that's cool. So who directed Rocky?
Do you think he was influenced by the sandwich man?
Yeah, I'm. I'm going to.
I'm really annoyed at not knowing that off the top of my
head. So it's him and who was the
other one guy that was influenced by the sandwich man?
Yeah, what did we say earlier? My mind's gone a blank.
Sorry. The Road gang bit was quite
actually quite like the road gang bit, although it was so
laboured, much of it. Yeah, with David Lodge and it's
sorry, it's Dee Rigger on this podcast to say Dave Lodge, he
was in Cockleshell Heroes because he wasn't Cockleshell
Heroes, but that passing of the T down the line bloody.
Hell, that's a laboured joke, isn't it?
Yeah. It went on too long.
It did. It did go on too long, but I
kind of like Dave Lodge in it. I liked it.
I thought he was quite good. Now, one of those, the youngest,
one of those navies, it's supposed to be James Bolum and.
Creditors, I saw that. I looked.
I looked at the actor a couple of there's a few shots of the
actor and he can't. Yes, he looks, he looks like a
pound shop. James Bolum I.
Thought he looked like a young Marquis Smith from The Fall.
To be a very different film if he was.
If he was in it. And did you know the the
pavement artist? Did you find out who that was?
The guy doing the drawings on the pavement?
I did. Look up on IMDb.
But who? Who was that?
Well, I didn't. You know, I didn't actually put
his name, but he is, or he was Charlie Chaplin's son.
Wow. Who was trying to make it and
acting and never did so actually.
On the on the subjects of trying to find out who everyone was if
ever there was, I get quite frustrated sometimes when IMDb
list casts in appearance order. But if ever there was an
argument to do that for a film, it's this one.
And they don't, which is really frustrating, yeah.
Yeah. But, and we got Bernard Cribs,
haven't we, as a dandy photographer photographing Susie
Kendall? My heart was gladdened at the
sight of Bernard Cribbins. Yeah.
And he he comes up against Dave Lodge and both of them had been
together in two way stretch, of course.
Yeah, on our. List it.
Is. I consider that to be Sellers
second best film, maybe second third I re.
Watched it again recently for the first time in years and
yeah, absolute still absolutely loved it.
Isn't it? It's so.
Good. Like yeah, I want to, I want to
watch it again. Actually I was talking to my dad
about it and saying we should watch it so I might bring it
round to see him but. And this might be sacrilege, but
who? Who steals the film?
Who steals that film, guys? Well.
It's it's, it's your man, the prison warden, isn't it?
It's Lionel Jeffries. Lionel Jeffries.
Lionel Jeffries as prison officer.
What's his name? Claudio Grout, Yeah.
Grout, yeah. Grout yeah, yeah, so.
There's the whole bit with the plank.
There was no, so we've got this ditch, we've got Bernard
Cribbins who's not watching what he's doing.
He's just taking photographs of Susie Kendall and he's edging
ever closer to the ditch and you think he's going to go in, he's
going to go in. And then for no reason, one of
the navies puts this plank over. But there's no reason he does
that because then as soon as, as soon as Bernie Cribbins walks
backwards over it, he moves it away.
So there's no, there was no reason for it at all.
It's things like that that annoyed me, you know what I
mean? It should have.
It should have been done with more class, should have been
better. Thought a lot of half thought
out sketches I feel. Yeah.
I find that a lot of them they don't kind of it doesn't go the
way that it should go almost and it they don't see it through.
It feels like half finished and like the one earlier with the
Tracy Crisp in the in the what fishmongers when she gets it
just doesn't throwing fish at them and then it just kind of
fades into something else and there's like not a proper not a
proper joke there do. You know where I bet there's a
better version of that plank joke without without being able
to actually give an example, but I guarantee there will be one.
It's in a Norman Wriston film, probably.
Yeah, probably can imagine. So it just feels, again, there's
a few things in this as well where they set something up
where something has to happen, but they don't go through the
mechanics of it properly, so they never see it through.
So it just feels a bit fast in the end.
There's a scene later on with the with the rowers, you know,
you've got the guy with the rowing the boat and then the
guy. Yeah, yeah, the wrong Moody bit
where all the people on the on the boat jump out of it for no
reason. Yeah.
Including Pauline Fowler, OH. Yes.
Well, she looked like Pauline Fowler.
She did look like Pauline. Fowler.
Another, another bit that went on too long.
Sorry, I'm really we're really laying into this film.
But it's not that bad. But there's but it's just it
could have been better, so much better.
But the bit that went on too long was, you know, the bit
with, with Terry Thomas and and the Milky Bar kid.
And they're trying to get to this.
They're trying to get the Scout Jamboree or something and
they're trying to ram themselves into the smallest vehicle in
London. Again, for your pardon the pun,
if that bit was tighter, then it would have been, yeah, a lot
better. And again, so much comic
potential in that scene and with someone like Terry Thomas and
then all pretty pretty much squandered.
And then obviously you've got all the the brown face aspect to
that bit as well. And yeah.
It's and Ian Hendry back again that seems.
To be the travel avatar. Travels out.
I don't think I'm in any trouble.
Let's. Consider your position at the
moment I can only describe it as unbelievably tricky as soon.
As Terry Thomas showed up, I, I was like, oh, yeah, Terry
Thomas. He'll, he'll save the day.
Nope. And that's not his fault.
It just got the the two Indian lads trying to force themselves
into this Jeep, is it? Or whatever it is.
It's just painful to watch. And not in a not in a funny way.
It just goes on too long. Yeah.
And it's one of them where I don't really get why, why we're
still with it. It was.
So tedious that I was trying to figure out exactly where that
scene was being shot it. Felt.
Like somewhere on Buckingham Palace Rd.
But you know, obviously my point of reference of London, you
know, despite having lived there for 18 years and a lot of, you
know, a lot of things, a lot of those buildings are so old that
they don't change. But it it's just hard to hard to
tell with a lot of it. He's kind of half finished.
Like the like the street that he lives, that he lives on is kind
of half finished. Isn't it somewhere in Houston?
Well, that's half finished because it's been bombed.
But you know, I'm going to. Say that's all gone now.
So I looked it up and that his his house is no longer there
isn't Mr. Quilby's and a few persons.
Did you notice? That there was a lot of
buildings were scaffolded all around them, like Saint Paul's,
for example. And that that scene with Terry
Thomas is just, you know, because I'm playing the film as
we're talking. That scene's just been on, and
it certainly isn't Buckingham Palace Rd.
Not that I know. What Buckingham Palace Rd.
Oh, is it? Not.
But it's, it looks like it's film around the back of some
strip club or something, you know, dust bins and all sorts
are. You sure it wasn't Buckingham
Palace Rd. Let me.
Have a look. I've got real streets open we
can find. We can find it.
Where was it now? It was Purchase.
Purchase St. in Summerstown NW 1.
Oh, bloody Summertown. Yeah.
Nope, I don't know. Yeah, but I also found that
going back to the John Lames scene, that that sandwich shop
is now called The Sandwich Man. Oh, it exists, yeah.
So it still exists. By the way, and someone else in
that scene, the, the, the Reece spoon scene with John Lamesra,
Gerald Campion, who was the guy in the suit of armour or the,
the, the, the chainmail with the rusty arm.
Yes, but he was huge in the 50s. He was at the 40s, fifth, late
40s, fifties. He was Billy Bunter on
television. Oh wow, my yeah, my mum and dad
have talked about Billy Bunter before.
I've never seen any, but I've heard and.
Thinking on the book The old. Books are something.
Yeah, we've got the bit with Peter Jones as meant for the
Magnificent and Aubrey Morris as his assistant, Cedric the Great.
Who's a Who's a escapologist? Orby Morris.
Who I love for his over the topness in the Man About the
House movie. Yes.
And he was, he was in the
prisoner. Quite, yes.
Memorably. And the wicked man he was also,
he was also in Deadwood, do you know that?
Yes. What was he?
I didn't. Know that?
Yeah, I remember that from doing the Comedy Connections for him.
Yeah. And he's.
Yeah, because he had this kind of last Final Chapter American
section of his career. He's in things like Tales from
the Crypt and and like for American kids films and stuff.
That's right. That's right.
That's cool. Now do you?
Do you think that Dom Jolly from Trigger Happy TV?
Yes, I wrote that. I wrote that in my notes.
It's films like trigger happy TV as well.
We have a car crash with a man dressed as a kangaroo and a man
dressed as a polar bear fighting.
Yeah, that was good. And they?
Didn't think to have the obvious Big Train joke where it's a is
it a cat and a mouse or is it a cat and a dog in Big Train where
they're winding each other up in a pub?
Yeah. That's brilliant.
Is that sketch? Where they end up fighting.
Yeah, they end up fighting in the street by like a cash point.
Yeah. It's really good, yeah.
Yeah. And then a girl on a motorbike
gets her leather pants ripped off because she catches them on
some barbed wire fence. So we've got, we've got a bit of
sort of semi nudity in there as well.
Yeah. But I spent ages that's that's
that's filmed in Soho and there's, it's a wreck.
There's a record shop that we see briefly.
And having worked in the record shop in my in my youth, I love
things like that. And I paused because you have
the front window of the record shop, a bit like when I we
covered Billy Lyer a while back and there's a record shop in
that. And I paused on that to see if I
could identify any of the discs in the window.
But this record shop, it the only, the only, there's a couple
of LP covers that I could kind of make out, but the only thing
I could really make out clearly was they're advertising Nancy
Sinatra's These boots are made for walking.
I love it. Which now that came out in late,
late 65, early 66, sort of December, January 66, so must
have been filmed around that time.
But if that's the case, it looks remarkably good weather, I
thought, doesn't it? Because yeah, because I I did
look it up and the thing. That I found said it was yeah,
film between early September and late N65 and yeah, it run, run
for a period of 61 days. Did the shoot and I thought it
looks more like either late summer or spring.
Yeah, but I just. Got lucky did they?
But just got lucky with the sun. But if that's the.
Case the these boots are made for walking wasn't released till
December. That's odd, I wonder.
If there's some reshoots, then and came back and.
Maybe did some? Feels like feels like an odd
time to, you know, a film that's 100% location as you as you
said, silence is choose. Choose to film it does, and
apparently, apparently right at the end.
Literally the the the last sequence of the film where
they're having this multicultural St. party on
Quilby St. and celebrating Esmeralda's return.
Some of that sequence was filmed was night for day shooting.
Oh, wow. Which, yeah, that's interesting.
You look at it. And this is according to the
producer who was doing the audio commentary on the film that I
listened to, which wasn't very good, by the way.
I spent most of it. There was there's very, very
little information that he gave. He spent most of it going, oh,
he's going to put his sandwich board down now and he's going
to, he's going to walk into the Hilton and he's going to sit
down and there's going to be some lad coming up.
Paging Horace Quilby. Yeah, you think he.
Was doing audio description. Yeah, Did he not come through I?
Don't. Understand what the thing was.
No, no, he goes to the Car Mart showroom to try and sort things
out between Stephen and Sue, which no one cares about, let's
face it. But he he decides he wants to
try and sort things out. Yeah.
I don't get why he cares. No and. £21,000 for a car in
1965 as well because. He somehow guy you've always got
your inflation calculator out for.
What for roles, though? For roles you're talking, yeah.
Because I guess. It's what Guy and his
highfalutin lifestyle would just refer to as a car.
I've seen you driving around Brighouse in your roles.
Yeah, exactly. With the top down, do they have
soft tops? I think I've let myself down
there. Had it converted.
Let me get my inflation calculator out.
I should, I should. I don't know why I didn't do it
because I did think about it. And then I was like, Oh no, I
probably won't have to do it now here I am back again.
What we're thinking. What did?
You say 21,000? Yeah.
What what what do we think? It's pre decimal.
Blimey, I'm going to say 136,000 lbs. 300 Three £144,000 was 21 K
in 1965. Shocking.
So yeah, just me and my roles, driving around Brick House,
upsetting the locals and then that, that.
Older car salesman Donald Alfred, who was a very famous.
Or it's of Arabia actor? Yep, he looked a bit like he
looked like he should be some sort of Soviet statesman.
Yeah. You can picture him in one of
those big fairy hats. Perfect.
There was actually there's there's a nice little quick
scene we saw with Abdul on his carpets when the sandwich man
thinks that he's levitating on the carpet.
I like that a bit. But it's it's a forklift truck
out of shop, obviously. Yeah, I.
Quite like that. It was a bit whimsy and it got a
bit trippy and I thought it's it's a film going to do
something a bit weird now we're going to went to believe this,
but no, sadly it doesn't. I was hoping we're going to get
a bit trippy then. Maybe a couple of years or maybe
a year after this was made, it would go real full on
psychedelic batshit like Casino Royale and Modesty Blaze.
They just just throw everything into the into the pot, clearly
pot. But no, it's not.
It's still a traditional British comedy film.
There's there's nothing to weigh out, is there?
It's kind of, there's kind of a bit of it.
There's not a clash, but there's, there's a coming
together of the old and the new. But it's it is still pretty much
a traditional British comedy film.
The British comedy industry likes doing that every kind of
generation, doesn't it? To try and bring together old
and new, yes. Yeah.
Whether it be in a film or a or a, you know, specifically made
series. But yeah, we that's something
we've noticed as well, a little bit of a pattern developing.
It might have been nice if they'd had people like cooking
more or yeah, even, you know, cuz cuz Cleese was making a name
for himself around this time. And Tim Brooke Taylor, you know,
it would have been nice for a few of the, you know, the
younger generation comics to have had little cameos in this
as well. Yeah, You could have had like,
Eleanor Braun, people like that showing up and like you say,
Kookamar. Yeah, it would have been quite
interesting to see that Burt John, Burt, John Fortune and
those guys were knocking about. Whereas most of the people in
the film seem to be kind of reaching that peak are going
over, apart from a couple of people, I'd say.
Some of them, you know, And it, it feels weird that it wasn't a
little bit more contemporary, you know, mixing that all with
the new bit, like the wrong box, I guess.
Yeah, what a year. Later, I think was that 6660?
Six. Yeah, it was, yeah.
Yeah, Harry H Corbett said it, of course.
But he was still, he was still a well established actor, although
I think Steptoe was into its third year by this year.
It was coming to its end, wasn't it?
For, well, at the end of its first kind of run before they
came back. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
One one thing I noticed was the outside of the London Palladium
is there's a poster for Babes in the Wood.
Is this the one that Sid James was appearing in when they were
doing Carry on Screaming, which meant he couldn't be in Carry on
screaming and Harry H Carver took over?
It would. Have been because carry on
screaming was 66, wasn't it? So yeah.
There you go. We only know this because we've
talked about it very recently on a Carry On miniseries.
We did. We talked about Carry On.
The reason Sid James wasn't in Carry On screaming was because
he was doing a long run, long panto run.
Papers in the wood at the at the Palladium.
Yeah. Well.
Into well into the summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is. Bizarre.
Well, it feels bizarre now for a pantomide to run so long.
But yeah, I found that interesting.
Hello, stage door keeper. No.
Oh my God, you don't say. Oh, no.
What a tragedy. He was here a moment ago.
I was just talking to him. Yes.
I'll get onto it right away. I'll tell him.
Oh, he's. No, he's my older.
No, he's Federico the contortionist.
He's had a double oligo thing happened to him.
He's done himself in mischief. He's.
I've got to find the Doctor Who don't stand there cluttering up
the gang. Why, he might be all knotted up.
We may have to Fred him through. Hello, Hello, Hello.
So. A lot of.
Other stuff happens, but we, we have this, we have a scene in
the Royal Gardens and there's, there's a, there's a thing with
a lawn mower an an escaped lawn mower can.
I just. Say something about this.
This is the other thing that reminded me of a horror film.
It's. Like, like watching Christine
sort of hoping that this lawn mower is just going to attack
everyone. And it was all, all of it tame.
So maybe Steve Stephen King saw this film.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the director of Rocky and Don Jolly.
Don Jolly all saw this movie. Now did you, did you notice that
that little lad that caused all this mischief was also called
Stephen? So you got 2 characters with the
same name in this film for no reason?
I thought that was going to be, there was a set up for something
that was going to be some confusion later on that there's
two characters called Stephen. But no, no, never, never came
back into it. Again, just not just not thought
through enough. Yeah, I did want to kind of
point out that the fact that this flowers scene with the
runaway lawnmower doesn't end with the way the, well, the way
I expected, expected it to end. I thought it was going to go
through the flowers because we just see it rolling off.
It nearly kind of goes over a couple who were kind of making
out on the lawn and all these bits is going towards the
flowers and then it does it stop or it miss or it misses.
And then there's a guy with the boat who's at his boat for 20
years, Toy boat falls on the flowers and you expect all the
petals to go up like confetti and it just doesn't.
No. Well, again, it's missed
opportunities. Technically missed
opportunities, but there's a few.
There's a few faces. You've got Stanley Holloway
there and Alfie Bass. And the film reaches its its
quivering climax when Quilby and Sue are waiting for the river
bus on the Thames and this dickhead in the in the speedboat
with the water skier. Yeah.
Well, no one would do that. It's bizarre.
There's there's a punt. There's a punt punting or what
do you call it? What do you call them?
Row is row is, that's the word. There's row is there's your man
with Pauline Fowler and friends who were just going for a bit of
AI, don't know, bit of a pleasure cruise or whatever.
And then you've got this guy in a, in a, in a speedboat with a
water skier just absolutely tearing down the river and just
causing chaos. Yeah.
Bizarre. It is bizarre, it feels.
Like off cut off cuts from another film.
Yeah. Stunt setups from Do You Only
Live twice or something? Yeah.
At the same time, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I was, yeah, I was, I was like, I wasn't expecting it to take
this turn. And then you've got the, the,
the, the guy on the site that was coaching the the rowers and
he's that's. Ron Moody.
Yeah, of course, yeah, Yeah.
And then he goes in that that van, which I thought was quite a
funny gag to say. I thought it was a bit obvious
where he's on the bike and goes up the lorry and then comes out
the passenger door walking. Yeah.
And then he ends up being sort of throws a tire over one of
those. Life.
Life rings. Life rings.
Lifesaver things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then he ends up sort of in one of those suspended
pretending to swim, which which I didn't like that bit.
No, yeah, I did like the guy, the guy who get and his wife who
get covered in blue paint. That was quite funny.
And I quite like the bit where the guy on the the jet ski ends
up on the front of that. Is it a yacht or something?
Yeah, but just stuff happens. Just stuff happens.
And, and it's not particularly amusing.
Stephen and Sue make up and they offered to drive Mr. Quilby home
and he gets in the car and it turns out to be an amphibious
vehicle. Yeah.
It's the spy who loved me on the Thames.
A Triumph Herald, I believe. You wouldn't get me in that car.
You would not get me in that car.
No. Not with Stephen and Susie
anyway. Not for me.
And they arrived back at Harold St.
Horace St. even I'm calling him Harold, he's Horace.
And and there's a big St. party because Esmeralda the pigeon has
won the race or whatever the hell it was she was doing.
And everyone's happy. And the, the the Indians and
Burt Quark and Abdul providing the music.
And Brian Kent from Play School is the newspaper photographer,
and he's got hair. And then it sort of pans out and
you think, oh, that's a nice, well, it's not really a nice
ending, It's just an ending. But then they decide, no, let's
tack on completely incongruous ending of men wrestling and
Dolly birds clapping. It's one of the weirdest things.
Yeah, it. Makes it.
Makes no sense. What's so?
I'm listening to the audio commentary and I'm thinking
right, OK, this is where we'll get the dope right?
This The producer will explain the thought process behind this
weird ending. And all he said was something
like, yeah, And then we decided to end up with wrestling.
I would literally. That's all he said.
I wouldn't have been leftover from another film where they
were like, well, we need to do something.
We've got this in the camp from this previous thing that we did.
Should we just put that off it? Smacks of that.
So there we go. So, final thoughts.
Weirdly, what you're saying about the.
Jeff. Kate's podcast saying because I
I've put in my own notes, which I haven't looked at for about 3
weeks, that they are trying in inverted commas to make a virtue
of multiculturalism. So I think that is, that's kind
of one of the messages, isn't it?
Yeah, which is? Which is positive, absolutely
positive. Yeah, it's not the worst film in
the world of by any means, but it's just a shame.
Wasted potential I'd. Agree.
I think there's I think the like you said, there's a lot of
potential. I liked all the stuff in London.
I like the fact that it is filmed on location, but I just
feel like there's so many missed opportunities and it made me
want to watch other films of like the time that I've enjoyed
more like blow up, you know, the Michelangelo and T and Antonini
one. I always get these names wrong.
And then there's Lindsay Anderson shark called the white
bus that I really liked. That's the thing called Red,
White and 0, which was like 3 short films all put together,
which I'd recommend. And it's, it was written by
Sheila Delaney as well. And it's about taste of honey.
Yeah. So it's done in 67, so just
after this. And it's about a young woman
going from London to Manchester and goes on a tour of Manchester
with Arthur Lowe's the Lord Mayor doing the tour.
And it's really surreal and weird.
And yeah, I'd, I'd recommend watching that.
And he just made me want to watch those again rather than
yes. But it had its moments, I'd say.
I think if. I think if we were ranking it in
our list, it would be kind of top bit of the bottom third
probably. So it's not, I mean it's not
nowhere near as as awful as some of the crap right down the
bottom, but the the the brown face would pull it down a long
way for me. I, I, I wasn't a fan of it.
I kind of accepted it that it was part a product of its time
that unfortunately that is what you're going to get rather than
actually getting authentic actors in, unfortunately.
And I think like you said earlier, Tyler, it's not they're
not making offensive kind of racial jokes.
Some of it, it's not great. I think, you know, it does feel
a bit caricature, but you know. I think had it just been those
two characters then it probably would wouldn't have annoyed me
anywhere near as much. But the the fact that Ben Teen
himself had to join in at the end?
Oh yeah. That.
Left more of a bad taste. Yeah, I could see that.
But you. Could see in that bit, that
short sequence where he's he's he's playing this Indian.
What is he owner of the jazz club.
You could see him really, he was really into that character.
He was, he was doing some nice comedy business.
Despite everything, you know, despite the brown face, he was
doing some nice comedy business. OK, there's the, there was the
stereotypical nodding and all the rest of it that that you
would get back then. But it's, it's why I think it's
it's so weird that he played the central character who was so
bland. Yeah, yeah.
I, I, I don't know why he didn't give himself more to do, to say
he was one of the writers on the film, that he just decided to be
this link between everything it would have.
Been it would have been so easy for him to play 678 characters
in this film. Just little, little, yeah, bits
in this film popping up here and there as different characters.
But he decided not to. And it's.
Strange that you didn't get more of his people from It's a Square
World. Popular.
No, no Frank Thornton, Sir, or Clive Dunn.
You know that's true. Yeah.
You would have thought that with it being almost like a spin off
that they would have been involved as well.
Yeah. I wonder if it was scheduling or
something. I don't know but.
I think it could have replaced the superfluous kind of will
they won't they love story with Stephen and what's her name with
him and Mrs. Devere would have been much more interesting, much
more interesting I've. Wanted more Dora Bryan in this
film and yeah, we didn't get enough, I don't think.
No, because it no it. Sets it up so well.
But yeah, like a lot of things, there's a good setup.
Just not a good punchline, no. OK chaps.
Well, thank you so much. And so the third series of
Britcom Goes to the Movies is coming out when?
October, mid-october, let's say. I think it's going to be October
the 9th. And it's starting off with a,
with a classic, stone cold classic on the buses.
Yeah. Absolute classic with John
Raine. Exactly.
We've been talking about it since the first series and we're
finally doing it with John Raine as well.
So it's a good, it's a do on the buses I think.
And if people want to check you out on I mean, people are
leaving Twitter in droves, but if people want to check you out
on social media, how do they do that?
We're. We're at Brick Con, goes to the
movies on everything. So on Twitter, on Now, on Blue
Sky and on Insta as well. And then yeah, actually, that's
it for social media. Well, I'm at Robert C Heath on
Twitter and guy. What are you guy at?
Guy at Guyston? Under score Walker, I think.
It's at Guyston under score Walker on Twitter.
Brilliant. OK, guys.
Well, thank you so, so much. And next time we speak, it will
be to talk about a better film, hopefully.
Fingers crossed. Let us let us hope so.
I'll turn. To have you again, Tyler, Yes.
And we'll talk about Peter Sellers film.
Have to be, I don't know, Harry Seekim or Spike Milligan,
something like that. I don't know.
We'll sort something out. We'll sort.
Something. But yeah, thank you for having
us. It's been good to talk about the
Sandwich Man.