The Cuckoo Patrol

I watch all genre of films, even if I see bad reviews. I like to make my own mind up. But this film is nothing but an absolute disaster and I find it very embarrassing to say I'm British. Never been a big Kenneth Connor fan and this has done him no favours at all. His acting, if you can call it that, is abysmal and cringe worthy. There are a few well known faces which must have felt very embarrassed to have their name associated with this drivel. Freddie and the Dreamers where more like a nightmare. This so far is the worst film I have ever seen and likely to be the only one as it will certainly take some beating. Avoid please....I have warned you!!

A star vehicle for Freddie Garrity - of FREDDIE AND THE DREAMERS fame - THE CUCKOO PATROL is an entirely dated and lacklustre comedy centred around a Scout troop and the misadventures they get themselves into. This really is poverty row stuff, with awfully lame jokes and the sight of Garrity mugging and gurning towards the camera all the while. You wonder how on earth a production like this got made or who they were aiming at given the star's five minutes of fame had long since passed.

Still, for fans of cult and/or forgotten films, THE CUCKOO PATROL holds some fun. Kenneth Connor and John Le Mesurier contribute a nice little double act as the thoroughly exasperated scouting superiors and some of the sub-plots are quite fun, like when the Scouts unwittingly aid a criminal gang with their attempt at safecracking. But let's be fair, the quality of the writing is very poor here, and the film as a whole feels like something that came out of the 1930s rather than the late '60s. Victor Maddern gives the best performance as the gang boss.

Frank Randle was making the same sort of nonsense - with the same director of photography - during the war; and twenty years later it's still no funnier.

More of this was shot on location than Mancunian Films' meagre budgets ever allowed, but Freddie Garrity (whose comic leaping about endeared him at the time to my grandmother and during the early seventies was still starring in the children's TV comedy series 'Little Big Time'), while making Randle seem as sophisticated as Noel Coward by comparison, completely lacks Randle's redeeming acrobatic prowess.

Being a fan of sixties music and the associated bands, I wondered how I had missed this film. I now know why, its rubbish. It must have sunk without trace on its release.

Whilst there is stella cast of fine comedic talents, they are wasted in this turkey. Makes me wonder how much they got paid and was it worth it.

I don't know HOW this ever got to be made, despite the stalwarts of British cinema/familiar faces, plus, off the top of my head in 1967, Freddie and the Dreamers, had used up any popularity they had by then. They produced dire songs here too.This really was an awful script and acting in a vain attempt to capitalise on the 'pop-stars-into-film' genre, especially really limited to 60s bands. This is really forgettable and not pleasant, or funny in any way. It had to be viewed though as 'part' of this genre, in my book, but I regretted every minute of it, even though the actors I've said, had 'support'. 'The 'gang' are just that, a troupe of Boy Scouts unwittingly helping and then foiling a couple of robbers. Do yourself a favour - give it miss, promise! Saw this recently, on the new UK satellite channel TalkingPictures.