Our Miss Fred

Using the almost standard plot device of "Madame Behave" with Julian Eltinge and Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot," this drag romp puts the he-man hero in a situation where he can only survive by posing as a female. Shakespearean actor La Rue is drafted into WWII and appearing in a camp show in France when the Nazis advance. He will be shot as a spy unless he continues in his female costume. Soon he is trying to escape in the company of randy English schoolgirls. La Rue's enormous charm and just plain likableness (which I have also observed on stage) keeps the endless double entendres good clean fun. For example, amorous Nazi general: "You're all woman and something more!" Danny: "You're right!"

Somebody must have paid a huge bribe to get this drivel onto cinemoid. Punchlines without jokes, a couple of well known actors with a tax bill to pay and Danny La Rue revealing that his talents don't go beyond a half-hour stand-up routines in bars, if this is a sample. It required 3, that is THREE writers to produce this collection of music hall nazi jokes- no tension, no sub-plots, no romantic storyline- just running on for over an hour because that's how much film they have in the cans!

There are 2 major problems with this film.Fitstly the story was written by Yed Willis,a dramatist.Secondly it is a one joke film La Rue is a man dressed up as a woman.The comedy comprises inane slapstick and weak double entendres.Incidentally the film is set in France in 1940,the photo of Churchill in a bar places it after May 1940.The film was sent out on release as an AA,equivalent to 15.So it is unlikely that the song would have been cut to lower the certificate

I finally caught up with this star vehicle for popular drag act of the day and Irish born entertainer Danny La Rue who had been a staple on prime time TV in the 1960's and 70's, appearing on various British light entertainment shows, most notably the Good Old Days, with his likeable mix of flamboyant charm, music hall songs and double entendre comedy.

Our Miss Fred was specially written for La Rue in an era where popular TV shows were being transferred to the big screen in their own feature films as a cash in on the popularity of the Carry On films. Audiences would flock to see TV favourites like On the Buses, Steptoe & Son, Til Death Us Do Part, Dad's Army and Porridge at their local cinema. This is a welcome addition to that trend but the plot and jokes soon wear thin as La Rue's persona can only carry it so far.

Set in France in WWII La Rue's character Fred Wimbush, a Shakespearean actor sent to entertain the troops, must stay in character as a woman so he is not mistaken for a spy by the Nazi's. Taking refuge with a group of girls from a finishing school there's plenty of risque jokes, innuendo and slapstick comedy that is all good natured even if some of it may not sit well with audiences today. However acts like Hinge & Bracket, Julian Clary and Lily Savage (Paul O'Grady) continued the drag tradition with risque comedy that proved popular with audiences and with a resurgence in drag acts such as RuPaul's Drag Race this might find a renewed appreciation for La Rue who was one of the first popular female impersonators in mainstream entertainment, often being awarded British Entertainer of the Year.

It's an amusing diversion and not a bad effort to expose Danny La Rue to a wider audience who has good support from fellow British comedy actors like Lance Percival, Alfred Marks and Frances De La Tour. Written by acclaimed Irish playwright Hugh Leonard who was usually known as a dramatist than a comedy writer.

Hmmm. Unfortunately, here, Danny La Rue just never convinces at the Shakespearian actor "Fred Wimbush" in the first place and so for me this quickly descends into an hybrid of "La Grande Vadrouille" (1966) and a "Carry On" film - and not a very funny one, either. He and his troupe are out entertaining the troops when they falls into Nazi hands. Thinking "Fred" is a woman, they let her go - only for her to focus her efforts on rescuing her squad and making it to safety. The stereotypes run rampant here - the stiff upper lip (and pretty brainless) airmen exemplified by Lance Percival's "Smallpiece" and Alfred Marks' incompetent "Gen Brincker" hardly portrays the enemy as a dangerous and lethal foe, either. Of course it's a comedy and there isn't meant to be any menace, but the joke recycles itself and the direction smacks more of a Norman Wisdom film - only without the fun. That said - it is not tacky or bawdy, La Rue takes a professional approach to this performance and had the writing delivered him a better, less puerile, script then it might have been more entertaining. It isn't really fair to judge this fifty years on - tastes have evolved and changed, and this is all now relatively old hat compared to what was being made at the time, but I still struggled with the concept. Watch and see for yourself...