Sid James Collection
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DVD Review
Ratings And Purchasing Information
Review
Sid James Collection:
For those of us that have already had our thirty tenth birthday the name Sid James is synonymous with the Carry On films of the 1960’s and 70’s and in truth that is what he will always be remembered for, well that and Bless this house, as well as (of course) his trademark Dirty Laugh. But the truth is that Sid James appeared in over 80 other productions BEFORE appearing in the first carry on film.
Sid James was born Sidney Joel Cohen in Hillbrow, South Africa in 1913. A successful ladies hairdresser in South Africa, he arrived in the UK in 1946 and appeared in his first film one year later in 1947. The people at Optimum have decided to celebrate Sid James’ life by releasing a DVD boxset of some of his films; the boxset is called the “Sid James Collection”. The title itself is a little misleading due to the sheer number of films that he was in but that aside the powers that developed this disk decided that three movies will make up the Collection, and so we have the Lavender Hill Mob (1951), Make Mine a Million (1959) and The Big Job (1965) within this set.
The Lavender Hill Mob:
Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) is a dependable, if downtrodden, seemingly ambitionless, civil servant. He overseas deliveries of Gold Bullion from the refinery to the bank, and has done so for over 20 years with his superiors trusting him implicitly. He spends a good deal of time in very close proximity to millions of pounds in Gold and yet lives frugally in the Balmoral Private Hotel in Lavender Hill on his £8 pounds and 15 shillings (less deductions) per week.
In reality Holland has been scheming for 20 years to steal the gold and make himself rich in the process, he was only lacking a reliable contact to help him with the task. The 20 years of impeccable service he had given so far was laying the groundwork for the day he found the right partner. A partner than could help him get the bullion abroad where it could be sold. One day he meets Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway). Alfred has a company that makes Eiffel Tower souvenirs, they are made in England and shipped over to sell in Paris and when Henry see’s that the smelting process is very similar to that of making gold bars he knows that he has found his man.
He discusses the plan with Alfred and he is up for the job, but they know their limitations and need to bring someone else in on it, after a very original method of recruitment they join up with Lackery (Sid James) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass). These are both small time crooks that help the duo plan and execute the job. With the gold melted down as the Eiffel Tower souvenirs Alfred and Henry take a trip to Paris to cash in their ill gotten gains only to find some schoolgirls put a dent in their plans for retirement.
I will admit now that I did not think I was going to like this film one iota. I do like black and white films but I also find a very high percentage of them tedious to watch, therefore it was a nice surprise to find that The Lavender Hill Mob is an enjoyable, if short, comedy/crime caper. This is helped of course by Charles Crichton’s interpretation of T.E.B Clarke’s wonderful script, a script which won the Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Oscar in 1953, and the film also getting Crichton the best British film Bafta in 1952. Alec Guinness himself losing the Best Actor slot to Gary Cooper.
At 78 minutes in length the film is quite short although I never felt that the pace was rushed along just to cram it in to those minutes. In fact the pace of the film seemed to be spot on and flowed quite smoothly. All the main characters I found rich and interesting. Holland and Pendlebury, the two main characters are both very similar. They are both seemingly honest men, but are susceptible to greed, Holland more so as he has been plabbing the robbery for 20 odd years, Pendlebury less so as he is just tagging along on a opportunistic level. Their humour and their ways of thinking are similar too which makes for a believable chemistry on screen. Likewise Lackery and Shortie are similar too, both being career criminals although they are both likeable and it would seem extremely trustworthy (noted when Holland and Pendlebury both get detained and yet they both still go through with the plan) and all four of them gel together into a nice little team.
The Lavender Hill Mob is an amusing 50’s comedy, it is well cast and extremely well written and directed. Recommended.
Presentation:
The disk’s 4.3 black and white presentation is a bit of a mixed bag, I found that overall the range of colour from black through to white were ok although the blacks did lose a fair bit of detail and there was the occasional blooming of whites. But generally the picture was sharp and clear. The Dolby Digital (1.0) Mono was sufficient, the dialogue clear through the central speaker and the score not overpowering it.
Extras:
The only extra on this disk is a trailer.
Overall:
Although the movie should really be in the Alec Guinness collection rather than the Sid James collection as James only has a bit part role it is still a very enjoyable film to watch. Amusing rather than outright funny for most of its (short) length it is never dull and I found enjoyable and entertaining to watch.
Make Mine a Million:
Arthur Askey and Sid James star in this enjoyable British comedy from 1959. Sid Gidson (James is a washing detergent salesman, trying, in vain to sell a detergent called Bonko to the British public. He is thwarted at every turn because his product isn’t on the telly. By Chance he meets Arthur Ashton (Askey) who works in the make up department of National TV (although he gives the impression that he is a bigwig within the organisation) and he convinces him to get an advertisement plug in front of the cameras.
They succeed in doing this but Ashton and the trusty cameraman Jack (Bernard Cribbins) who helped him are both caught after an internal hunt for the culprit/s and fired from their jobs. Teaming up with Sid they make plans to create a pirate TV station piggybacking off of the signal of the National TV stations cameras at various locations. The National TV bigwigs are outraged at this and it is not long before everyone is hunting Arthur Ashton.
I enjoyed the movie although still not exactly my taste in comedy, I appreciate though that this is how comedy was done in those days (so it seems from the films I’ve watched anyway) you can generally see Askey’s gags coming a mile off but even so they are quite funny and having you chuckling in a few places. Sid James is well… Sid James and yes I do find him funny generally, but his range of acting is extremely narrow and it is hard to differentiate him from film to film.
The plot itself is ridiculous but it is well written and allows the comedy to flow. This film as with the Lavender Hill Mob does not really have Sid James as the main character (It is Arthur Askey in this film) although he certainly plats a much bigger role than he did in Lavender. As for humour, Askey’s is totally different to that of James, he seems more to be playing to a live audience, I am sure there are even pauses at the end of lines when waiting for applause but even so it isn’t detrimental to the film, its just a different style.
The ending itself is a little clichéd and disappointing, feeling a little rushed to get everything tied out and out the way.
Presentation:
I thought the picture was surprisingly good quality considering its age, deep blacks through to sharp whites and everything in between were displayed well. There was the odd occasional softening of the picture and when cutting scenes there seem to be a short moment of softness of some scenes but nothing that I found particularly bad. Sound wise the mono sound track was clear through the front speakers wise the score never overpowering the dialogue.
Extras:
None
Overall:
Enjoyable movie which is well written, even if the plot is silly, certainly not the best black and white comedy that I have seen, but certainly not the worse.
The Big Job:
`The Big Job` is a wannabe Carry on film but the title carry on big job just didn’t make sense and so The Big Job was thought up. That’s my theory anyway and looking at who directed this it would seem that my theory is confirmed. Gerald Thomas directed this movie and loads of carry on movies before it (and after) and it’s only because Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams are not in this film that you know that this isn’t one of them.
The story has the premise of a great comedy. Frederick 'Booky' Binns (Dick Emery), Timothy 'Dipper' Day (Lance Percival) and female accomplice Myrtle (Sylvia Sims) are all part of a gang led by the poorly named George Brain (Sid James). They rob a bank of £50,000 but get caught during the getaway, but not before George hid the money in a hollowed out tree.
Fast forward fifteen years, the trio get out of prison (Myrtle was never caught or tried) and they set off to retrieve the money only for them to discover that a massive housing estate had been built where countryside had once been. The good news is that the tree is still there. The bad news is that it is in the back yard of a police station. The gang take rooms in a house opposite the Police station and then attempt to obtain their money through various harebrained schemes. Things start to get tricky when they find out that the tree is going to be cut down, and so they pull out all the stops to get to the money before the tree is gone.
Sadly, for me the film was a bit of a miss. Lance Percival came across as such a dim witted pratt it actually started to annoy me. The humour was stupid and trite in a carry-on-but-not-as-good kinda way and came over via a number of obvious set pieces that you new were doomed to failure before they even began. The crowning turd in the water pipe for me was when they obtained one of those telescopes that you used to put some money in the see the view. You know the ones that are usually on cliff tops or seaside piers so you could look out upon the ocean for a few minutes until the view went black when the timer ran out. They nicked it from a park so they could observe what was going on in the yard of the police station (where the tree was). But with the police station being literally across the road there was simply no need for it and was there only to provide a few cheap gags when the money ran out.
On top of that, once they produce the harpoon gun, I was reminded of the ACME crates that that Wile E. Coyote used to obtain in Roadrunner, and I was also reminded how humour has changed over the years and how bad it could be (although I've seen some poor recent films too that were supposed to be funny). There are a few laugh-out-loud moments within the 85 minutes running time but in all honesty they are few and far between.
Presentation:
The pictures was looking very nice on my setup, the blacks deep without losing detail although in the opening scene I felt that the contrast was a little too high, that however seemed to settle down and a nicely details black and white picture shone through. There were no noticeable artefacts of any kind. Sound wise the mono Dolby soundtrack is sufficient. Dialogue is clear across the front and the frugal score subtle and not over-powering
Extras:
None
Overall:
If you’re a carry on movie fan, then you may like this film. But even that is not a definite. I personally thought the film was average at best. The gags contrived and not actually that funny.
Overall on the box-set:
A mixed bag really. We have a superb film in the Lavender Hill Mob and a lousy film in the Big Job with Make Mine a Million falling somewhere in-between, and apart from The Big Job the other two films should not technically be in the Sid James collection as Lavender Hill Mob stars Alec Guinness and Make Mine a Million stars Arthur Askey. Another problem I found which I admit only became obvious to me after reading elsewhere was that the films lacked subtitles. Given the target audience of these boxset some of those people may need subtitles to follow the film and so that is a bad oversight on the part of the studio.
Opinion – limited appeal, mainly for genre fans.
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