Der grüne Mann

Mr Sim is ideally cast as a seemingly mild but actually ruthless assassin. His perfect comic timing, expressive features and ability to switch on a sense of genuine menace are well used in this sprightly farce. George Cole is admirable as the well meaning young hero while Jill Adams is a radiantly beautiful and desirable heroine. As indisputably English as Wimbledon but much more fun!

A murder, a deliberate mix-up with house numbers, a vacuum-cleaner salesman and a young bride-to-be in a compromising position. Oh, and a pompous politician about to be blown up by an assassin with a bomb in a wireless. It gets even better when these people are played by George Cole, Jill Adams, Raymond Huntley and of course the great Alastair Sim. This is a farce in the true British sense, with lots of running about, hiding of bodies and misunderstandings. Add to the mix Terry-Thomas making the most of his modest role and the much underrated Colin Gordon playing a stiff BBC announcer on the edge of a nervous breakdown and we have the recipe for a wonderful Sunday afternoon film. Britain made this type of film with great aplomb in the 50's, perhaps because our National Character was so 'send-upable' at the time and we didn't mind laughing at ourselves. We don't make them now, which is why we go out and buy DVD's of 50-year-old comedies that have no equal. Superb.

A top cast starting with Alastir Sim, George Cole and Terry Thomas. Sim plays the pretty evil hitman, Harry Hawkins who is foiled in his quest to blow up a politician by vacuum cleaner salesman William Blake (George Cole). The plot twists and turns to such an extent that it's quite hard to follow, but brilliant all the same. Terry Thomas appears for only about 20 minutes, but adds a hint of magic to the whole film. As always Sim and Cole work together brilliantly on screen and it's just a funny, quite creepy, good film.

Utterly hilarious from the first montage of droll assassinations (not really funny in news-horror 2006) but hilarious in it's clunky 50s tone set by Alistair Sim, THE GREEN MAN is a situation comedy of mistaken identity (including the title) that is as sharp now as 50 years ago. From clumsy George Cole and his vacuum cleaner salesman antics at the wrong house (Windybanks? anyone?) to Terry Thomas' leering spluttering "Basil Brush" type pub skirt-chasing THE GREEN MAN lurches hilariously from one weird character and place to screamingly funny suspense with the radio on the wrong station at the pub of the title. This is one of the most unappreciated and funniest Brit pix of the 50s and I implore you to get a copy any way you can. It should be up there with THE LADYKILLERS or SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH in beloved UK comedies...it even has Richard Wattis! Delight! And Alistair Sim...a sublime dry performance of apt face contortions ...his look of disgust alone had me laughing for days.

THE GREEN MAN is one of the funniest black comedies ever made, but it has been hidden from most movie fans because it came in a period of many films from Britain of equal value and with higher star quality (i.e., Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers as the star, rather than Alistair Sim, their equal in British cinema). Sim influence Guiness (who copied him in appearance in THE LADYKILLERS) and he appeared to better effect in film with Sellers (THE MILLIONAIRESS), but he never accepted knighthood or got the Oscar like Guiness did (nor did he get nominated for an Oscar like Sellers did on several occasions). So he gets an unfair short shrift, although there is considerable evidence that he was their total equal as an actor...certainly as a comic actor.

Sim is a professional assassin, who blows up his targets. However, he insists on agreeing to destroy the men he is hired to kill only if they happen to be rather pompous as well as politically objectionable. At the start of the film one sees him blow up a Latin American dictator with a bomb in a soccer ball. He also blows up a self-important millionaire with an exploding hammer (used to call a stockholders meeting to order). His target in the film is a rising, self-satisfied politician...and who can better personify smug self-satisfaction in British comedy than Raymond Huntley. Sim plans to hoist Huntley with his own petard - a recording of his normal, boring speech, set to blow up at a particular moment of dullness. Huntley is going to a seaside resort for the weekend, and Sim plans to go after him.

Unfortunately for the normally careful Sim, a cleaning lady stumbles on his plot, and he has to tie her up. But she manages to get the attention of vacuum cleaner salesman George Cole, who slowly realizes that the "helpful" Sim is not so helpful. Sim manages to get to the hotel, but Cole soon follows him.

Huntley is there, but his weekend is not so clean - he has a young lady there for some non-political activity. Also at the hotel (which is called "The Green Man") is Terry-Thomas, also there for the weekend, and hoping to become lucky. There is also the normal set of normal eccentrics that people British farces like this.

So the last half of the film is following the following points: Will Sim manage to avoid Cole, and get at Huntley? Will Cole find Sim, and save Huntley, without getting Terry-Thomas sufficiently angry at him for spoiling all of his attempts at picking up ladies? And will Huntley have his improper weekend, and enjoy hearing his own speech? Sim's bomb plot against Huntley hits one snag which for sheer unexpected effrontery is hard to top - he sets it in motion, only to find he has not counted on an active critic. It is only a ten second bit in the film, but it is a hoot!