The Green Man

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.

As always Alistair Sim brings his genius for comedy to a great British farce from the fifties. He seems to give an effortless performance as ever, making today's so called "comic" actors a lesson on how to do it. Even Peter Sellers, good as he was, could not approach this guy. Unjustly underrated by the British Establishment (all too keen to shower knighthoods etc. on lesser talents)Sim can elicit mirth from the slightest gesture or subtle change of expression. And that voice!! Incredibly mellifluous and characterful, he delivers lines like no-one else can ,apart from , perhaps, Kelsey Grammar in "Frasier". Try to see all his movies and you will not regret it - when the movies are not so great he always is. Just because the films are old does not render them uninteresting or unwatchable. A pity younger movie buffs do not study actors like Sim any more.

The Green Man is one of those movies that used to get a good deal of play on PBS stations but now seems to have disappeared. Too bad. It's a very funny example of wicked British black humor. The always excellent Alastair Sim plays an assassin attempting to blow up a fatuous politician who has found a hide-away for a tryst with his timid secretary. Raymond Huntley (perhaps best known as the family lawyer in "Upstairs, Downstairs") delivers the most hilarious soliloquy ever heard on the practices of English gastronomy in general and chopped toad as a delicacy in particular. Colin Gordon, familiar as one of the few actors to appear twice as Number Two in The Prisoner, does a send up of a rather precious poet who resembles T. S. Eliot. Wish this would appear on DVD.

Great Ealing farce in the Kind Hearts and Coronets murder-comedy stylee, revolving around Sim's hitman (specialising in slapstick bomb-hits) plotting the death of a prominent businessman, and George Cole's vacuum cleaner salesman, out to thwart the killer...Room for plenty of comedy shenanigans as the top cast blunder around leaving clues and confusing each other, building to a climax at the country inn of the title. Thoroughly enjoyable for fans of the genre, with just a little bit of Terry-Thomas thrown in near the end to add his unique suave zest to a very appealing mix. Expect the thrills to come from Sim's eyebrows and laid-back attitude, and Terry-Thomas' 'tache, rather than the plot.

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.