Man in a Cocked Hat

Carlton-Browne of the F.O.

Though this comedy is not strong on comedy and its love story is desperately short on charm, there is something about this film that is cunning enough to hold your attention. For starters it has Peter Sellers, which is usually more than enough to hold one's attention, but for a comedy in which Peter Sellers stars in, well, it should damn well be funny, right? Because this movie has a difficult time in hammering out the laughs, especially with the likes of Sellers and Terry-Thomas, it suffers greatly. The biggest attribute for this film is in the idea behind the story; failing upwards. I do like to see these types of films, perhaps this is why the film is cunning enough to hold one's attention. Not a terrible film, but you could always see better films with Peter Sellers in them. Mildly amusing, but hardly, if ever very funny.

This is one of those films that has a host of Stars from the Fifties and you'd think it would be a success. But sadly these days it's just a bygone relic only worth watching to see your favourite actors and tick it off your seen list.. It's really about the Foreign Office. The F.O. in the title. So kind of like a Private Eye film looking into the buffoonery of British oversea politics and it's jargon. The script isn't funny or even witty these days. Probably at the time (1959) it was topical. But barely understandable today. So despite lots of decent actors, the script is just bland and hardly raised a smile.

Considering he the strength of the cast, this was a real let down. The script just isn't up to the likes of Terry Thomas, Peter Sellers, et al. An opportunity missed.

Surely not yet Sellers at his best. I believe that he still had to be fully discovered. This is Sellers at the very beginning. He was proud of this at the time because he had just put his foot through the door. the best was yet to come. But hey I did appreciate how good this must have been for its time though. Im sure it got the audience laughing back then. I had high hopes to be in a fit, pretty confident I would be cracking up as always with Sellers, but not all that much with this one. But it was worth a watch since the story is based on this island which very much reminds me of the one I live on. Tonight Im going to watch another one of Sellers first and early works called "The smallest show on Earth", I hope it will get me giggling more than this one did as one would expect.

Another comedy about a plucky little country struggling through the jungle of the modern (for the forties) global world with only native wit and pluck to guide them, this is a fine entry in the Ealing cannon. Terry-Thomas sparkles as usual in the lead, as a feckless ministry man led to the brink of disaster when a nation he is supposedly in charge of starts attracting the interest of the world, Ian Bannen makes a great romantic lead, Peter Sellers puts in one of his quieter performances as a corrupt politico and the uber-suave John Le Mesurier plays against type as a rugged revolutionary leader. Lots of fun is had by all, especially the viewer; perhaps not in the very top echelon of Ealing classics, but pretty high up.

Partially from the perceived need, one feels, to include a conventional love story in the plot to make the film more marketable to a 1950's movie-going public. The film starts with some wickedly funny characterizations of the upper-class bureaucrats running the Foreign Office --- the British are pilloried in the way that only the British can pillory themselves. But after that, the film loses its way in a conventional farcical plot. Terry-Thomas watchable as always, but the great talent in the cast (Peter Sellers, et al) is largely wasted. A diverting, but not great film.

A flat and rather unfunny British comedy, it is nevertheless revived to a certain degree by nice locations and an interesting, though hardly brilliant, performance from Peter Sellers. I am not sure if Terry-Thomas and Thorley Walters were supposed to look so alike, but either way their similarity in appearance does not help the film, since they are both playing such similar characters that it is easy to forget who is who. The film does have the odd amusing moment or two, and overall it is quite okay stuff to watch, but it is rather far off the par of typical 1950s and 1960s British comedy - and not in a positive direction.

Huntley, whose scenes are the film's mainstay and whose part is actually larger than the over-touted Sellers, is supported by a fine range of British cameo actors including such stout civil service types as the wonderfully blank-faced Nicholas Parsons, the efficient shirker-of-responsibility John Van Eyssen, and that archtype of befuddled anglophobia, Miles Malleson. Produced on a lavish budget, with attractive photography and an especially witty music score, this Carlton-Browne is great fun. In all, a delightful satire on politicians and bureaucrats. We especially love the incongruous collection of clichés Huntley drags up for his United Nations addresses. In fact the barbs of the screenwriters' wit are often too close for comfort even today. The situations are surprisingly undated, despite the present Cold War thaw.