Light Up the Sky!

A unique film about a WWII searchlight battery. Great cast. Benny Hill is brilliant as a straight actor. I served in the last British Army Searchlight Squadron, 873 Movement Light Squadron. Royal Engineers. Technically the film is spot on and the special effects are good. I first saw this film when it first came out and have seen it several times since on TV. TV Choice give it one star. Shame on them. Ian

Somewhere in Europe, during the Second World War, a group of young men make up a Searchlight Squad. If an adventure is days of boredom interrupted by short bouts of terror, this is an adventure.... but for most of it they spend their time bickering, picking up women, and worrying about what's for dinner.

It's a comedian's show, with Ian Carmichael, Tommy Steele and Benny Hill at the top of the cast list, yet they are all tamping down their performances. If you've ever observed a comic actor giving a serious performance only to be surprised and impressed, you shouldn't be. As Edmund Kean said on his deathbed, dying is easy; it's comedy that's hard. Yet this quasi-service comedy tries to alternate the comedy with the difficulties of actual war, and doesn't really manage the first half of the remit. The actors step on the punchlines, deliberately.... but the result is 75 minutes of boredom, and 15 minutes of terror.

Before seeing this film I had only ever seen Benny Hill as the comic, seeing him in a straight role was a real eye opener because, in this film, he proved was a good straight actor as well. Combining Tommy Steele with Benny Hill was also a brainwave because they worked so well together as you can see from their performance of the title song " Light up the Sky. " The cast is full of good old British stalwarts such Ian Carmichael, still acting today and Dick Emery who was a brilliant comic in his own right. If you add back up from the likes of Victor Maddern, Sydney Tafler, Johnny Briggs and Sheila Hancock you have the makings of a truly excellent British movie. Sadly it is never shown on British TV and I have, so far, been unable to find a copy on VHS or DVD. If you do manage to find a copy of this film or you are lucky enough to see it on TV I can thoroughly recommend it.

LIGHT UP THE SKY! is one of those British WW2 comedies that acted as precursors to DAD'S ARMY and at times the similarities between the two productions are remarkable. This film's plot sees a constantly exasperated Ian Carmichael in charge of a searchlight squad whose job is to literally light up the sky whenever an enemy plane approaches. It sounds like a relatively straightforward job but of course in a comedy like this almost everything goes wrong.

Given the limited nature of the men's mission, a lot of this film is padded out with endless comedy scenes and character work. Some characters are homesick, others are in love, and the arguments are endless. Sadly, this didn't make very satisfying viewing for me, even though the cast is exemplary, featuring a mix of straight and comic actors. Victor Maddern is the depressed corporal, Tommy Steele and Johnny Briggs the fresh recruits, and the reliable Sydney Tafler one of the men. Benny Hill stands out as a soldier with a stand-up routine. There are also cameos from Dick Emery, Sheila Hancock, and Cardew Robinson.

I found Carmichael a bit of a distraction in this film as it looks like he's wearing false eyebrows, although I could be wrong. The bookend scenes in which he breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer directly are fun. LIGHT UP THE SKY! is an odd mix of character drama and humour, and the tragic moments of the story sit uncomfortably with the belly laughs elsewhere. I've seen better British war comedies from the era, for example CARRY ON SERGEANT.

It has been many a year since I have seen "Light Up The Sky" but the first and remaining impression was one of Honesty. The presented story, acting and setting is completely honest.It reflects a real sentiment of the times and that for my opinion is very rare.The only down side is that the whole historical times of the film are very much sliding into the fast vanishing past. The film will be forgotten and our memories will die with us...very sad. You can sometimes obtain a used VHS tape from Ebay but it always reaches over $40. Why this is so has been a surprise to me not for the lack of quality in the film to command a good price but the persons around who are willing to purchase.