A Fire Has Been Arranged

A FIRE HAS BEEN ARRANGED is a comic crime film made as a showcase for the entertainer duo Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen. These fellows are long forgotten by modern audiences but they once enjoyed great success with their comic antics and songs. Flanagan is best known today as the guy who sang the DAD'S ARMY theme. The story in this film sees Flanagan and Allen playing two members of a criminal trio who pull off a robbery and bury the loot in a field. They spend the next ten years in prison, only to discover upon release that the ill-gotten gains are now buried beneath a department store, so they must connive to retrieve it.

Into this plot are mixed some further antics with scheming corrupt employees, including Alistair Sim in an early performance (although he seems to have already created his well-known style of acting even at this stage of his career). Sadly, the whole thing is largely dated, and a mere excuse for some tiresome jokes which are as old as the hills and feel fairly cringeworthy today. The best thing about it is the plot, which was later reworked for the Sid James comedy THE BIG JOB. Things slow down even further for plenty of musical numbers, including a couple of pieces from 'The Buddy Bradley Rhythm Girls', which says it all.

This is an excellent example of the music hall style of comedy of not only Flanagan and Allen but also Robb Wilton.To add to the pleasure there is also Alistair Sinn in an early screen role.Contrary to the views of one reviewer these fine performers are not forgotten.The plot was of course used again for The Big Job.That film was second rate.Although this film was made by Twickenham they clearly made the budget go quite far.Whilst the humour would probably be considered old hat by modern audiences to those of us interested in the period and the actors it contains a lot to hold the viewer.In particular the tongue twisters employed by Bud.I was fortunate enough to see one of his last stage performances and still remember a joke he made about Jimmy Gold.

The film begins with a jewellery robbery by Bud, Ches and Hal who then flee to the countryside to bury their ill-gotten gains. The gang need to dig a big hole to bury their loot but also need to establish their location so that they can come back to retrieve it at a later date. This leads to the scene where they try to establish "North" and the extremely surreal and amusing dialogue about digging holes and selling them to the farmers This is not a great film but it is well worth purchasing the DVD for this scene, the later "You've got one, too" and legerdemain scenes and a reasonable early performance from Alastair Sim.

This isn't a great film but it does shed a light on prewar Britain - film made in 1935 when talking movies had only been produced for 6 years. Elements of the "script" show music hall roots of the style of comedy, eg set pieces. There is great Art Deco imagery and I particularly liked the external scenes including a short section on the Brooklands car race track. The dancing girls are poorly choreographed and look like a cheap version of a Busby Berkeley film. As other have said, Alistair Sim is on good form.