Dad's Army Movie Review

Source: Films & Filming, May 1971
Review by Eric Braun

Dad's Army

Directed by Norman Cohen. Produced by John R Sloan. Screenplay by Jimmy Perry & David Croft. Director of photography, Terry Maher. Music, Wilfred Burns. A Norcon Production distributed by Columbia. British. Eastman Colour. Cert. U. 95 mins.

Captain Mainwaring, ARTHUR LOWE; Sgt. Wilson, JOHN LE MESURIER; Jones, CLIVE DUNN; Fraser, JOHN LAURIE; Godfrey, ARNOLD RIDLEY; Walker, JAMES BECK; Pike, IAN LAVENDER, General Fuller, BERNARD ARCHARD; Mrs Pike, LIZ FRASER.

NINETY FIVE MINUTES. And theres the rub. Custom in the shape of the exhibitors, now demands about this time as the minimum length for a feature film, irrespective of whether it be a feature of epic proportions, or, as in the case of Dad's Army, a translation of a TV success to the wide screen. This particular comedy series depends for its effect on brief comic situations involving a well liked team of characters. Or so I am told, as hitherto the adventures of Dad's Army have invariably eluded me.

So one came to this film cold, as it were, and with only a faint resistance due to over - familiarity with Clive Dunn's Chart Topper, and emerged hooked for the future. Script writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft have evolved a lovely idea for the motion picture debut of their likeable band of incompetents: facing up to a Nazi invasion of the British coast, with Sam Kydd rather surprisingly glimpsed as an enemy orderly. (It turns out to be a false alarm, of course).

Director Norman Cohen has put his recruits through a series of situations which allows them to display their various idiosyncrasies as a splendidly integrated team, and achieves touches of visual poetry, as in the scene were Private Jones, obeys the general's (Bernard Archard) order to salute when helping him over a pontoon bridge. He releases his saluting hand and the section with the general mad the horse aboard is swept away by the current - at one blow a belly laugh, the deflation of pomposity (a recurring theme) and a moment of sheer beauty, thanks to Terry Maker's imaginative camerawork and the nobility of the stunning white charger who shows up the ineffectiveness of the human beings around him.

One is reminded of the best of the Will hay films, the ones in which he had his cronies, Moore Marriott, the toothless ancient, Graham Moffatt, the fat boy, and, on occasion, the splendidly dominant Norma Varden, who never received her due recognition as England's answer to Margaret Dumont. There was teamwork in recognisable situations and localities as British as the coastline of ' Walmington On Sea', where Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), self-appointed commander of the local LDV's, prepares to meet the Nazi invasion. Like Will Hay he is bossy and self-assertive, but there the comparison ends: where Hay was tall well-thatched and testy, Lowe is short balding and ineffably pompous, always avoiding the danger of caricature and remaining what Eleanor Bron (in Two For The Road) would surely describe as a 'Warm and worthwhile human being'.

The scene where the General administers a well-earned dressing- down and ends by threatening Mainwaring's future in the LDV's is brilliantly played; with the greatest economy of facial movement and only the slight moistness of his (Lowe's) eyes indicating what this deflated windbag is going through in being spoken to as he habitually addresses his 'inferiors'. His way with a line can even make 'Keep your hands off my - privates' sound like the peak of witty humour.

Of the others, Clive Dunn's dessicated but indefatigable butcher, buying his way through life with handouts of unrationed meat, and inventing preposterous weapons which invariably boomerang, is a joy, as is John Le Mesurier's subtle Sergeant Wilson, obsequious to his commanding officer and superior to the Bank, though resignedly aware of his inferiority in every other way.

The more straightforward deliniations of Arnold Ridley as the aged Private Godfrey, John Laurie as Private Frazer, the undertaker, and James Beck, the ubiquitous spiv, Private Walker, are only marginally less effective, but, maybe due to exigencies of the plot, Ian Lavender's downtrodden bank clerk, Private Pike, proceeds from a camply funny performance (sort of Derek Nimmo out of Grady Sutton) that makes one - happily only momentarily - have doubts about his explanation as to why he calls Wilson 'Uncle' Arthur, to an almost straight and characterless juvenile.

ERIC BRAUN

Sourced by Andy Howells for www.dadsarmy.tv

The copyright of this article belongs to the credited writer and the original publication it was sourced from. The opinion's be they positive or negative do not necessarilly reflect the opinion of www.dadsarmy.tv and any errors (typing or otherwise) which appear are reproduced for authenticity. The article is reproduced for reference purposes and the webmaster of www.dadsarmy.tv accepts no ownership of the article whatsoever.