Knalli ja sateenvarjo

Hannibal Herodotos Hamilton-Jones and Richard Hieronymus Canterbury Valentino Lamm are two men working in the ministry.They're not all that smart and get to do jobs nobody else wants to do.Now their job is to decide who's allowed to go to the queen's castle.Knalli ja Sateenvarjo (Lasten Leikkiä) from 1994 is made for video and its director is Lars Svedberg.It's originally a British radio play (The Men from the Ministry) from Edward Taylor and John Graham.It ran on BBC from 1962-1977.The Finnish version started running in 1979.Kauko Helovirta and Pekka Autiovuori are quite marvelous as Hamilton-Jones and Lamm.Aila Svedberg is a lot of fun to watch as Mildred Murfin.Esa Saario is great as Sir Henry Pitkin.Tuula Nyman is wonderful as Myrtle Boon.Marjukka Halttunen is very good as Ethel Diane Rabin.Lars Svedberg himself plays Hugo Bailey.Rauni Ranta, who has been also making the radio show, plays Lizzie.I happened to find the VHS from the library, and I actually never have listened to their radio shows.But this got me intrigued though, so maybe I will borrow those radio plays as well.This is quite funny from time to time, like with the baby in the drawer.The love story between Lamm and Myrtle is hilarious.And those two idiots are so much fun to watch, a little chuckling is required.

Knalli ja Sateenvarjo (A bowler and an umbrella) is based an a radio play originally written by Edward Taylor, and awesomely translated in finnish by Kersti Juva. It's quite popular in Finland for a radio show, and it has it's own strong fanbase. I myself am one of the fans, and i have probably every episode taped on a cassette (over 300 episodes if a remember right).

After the other main voiceactor (Kauko Helovirta)past away the play was never the same. There still comes new episodes every other year, because there are so many fans of the play. The reruns have been playing as long as I remember as well. And by the way, the play was on air for the first time back in the 70s! The play is set in a ministry in London.

The main characters:

Richard Lamm & Hannibal Hamilton-Jones (Pekka Autiovuori & Kauko Helovirta): two moron government officers, who don't seem to make anything right.

Mildred Murfin (Aila Svedberg): A blonde bimbo secretary

Sir Henry Pitkin (Esa Saario): The boss, the dictator, the evil

The storyline is only namely a new one, since the fans of the play will notice similarities to the old radio plays.

But now.. I think I've praised the radio show enough, so it's time for the part: What went wrong in the film version?

• All the actors are great voice/theaterical actors, and we do not want to see them on a video! I've never seen such overacting in any film. They are acting like they would on a theater play, so everyone in the last row sees your acting. And that doesn't look good when the camera is in front of your face

• The screenplay isn't the best possible. Combined from one of the not-so-good whole radio episode with some added material from others. They seriously should've chose better material (because there is a lot where you pick from), made a good radio episode entirely on film or optionally spend time to write a whole new good episode.

• The "director" Lars Svedberg isn't one of the professional ones, and of course that's why the film looks very amateurish. In the beginning of film there's few short clips from actually London, they're filmed by Lars during a vacation i guess. The film is published by Aila and Lars Svedberg's Ailars (Aila is Lars' daughter).

And the good sides...

Hmm...

+ There is no sequel coming, thank god.

All in all this TV-movie is made for just the die hard fans of the radio show, and probably nobody can't possibly see this by accident.

Radio show: With no doubt 10/10

This.. thing: Unrateable