esmereldajones

With a tagline "He's the cheekiest man in town!" The Card (Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns) will teach you a few tricks about how to make it in business from scratch.

While you watch Denry (Alec Guinness) stride through his blueprint for fortune, don't miss the smart tactics of Ruth (Glynis Johns). No wonder he chose to marry the soft Nellie; Ruth was sharp competition (but how did he resist those amorous blue eyes and pouting appeals?). She urged him to stand for mayor when Nellie was happy with pennies. It's a satisfying ending, but Denry would have been a bigger cracker with Ruth.

Writers and entrepreneurs: view it with notebook and pen. It's a 9-star must.

With war-time rations, a writing deadline with his publisher and a miserable birthday party ahead, Cyril Clarke is not in a candle-blowing mood. With a rush of inspiration he manages to finish the poem, a peculiar ode about a magickal fellow named Merlin Mound.

There is knock at the door that evening at the party (Betty Clarke has only cold sausage to offer the guests). The slimy looking Merlin Mound enters, proposing to ladle them with luxuries.

Merlin to Betty: "I received your husband's message and came at once."

Cyril to Betty: "He's the exact image of the character in the ode I finished this evening."

Cyril then gleefully wishes for a slap-up dinner. Merlin spins his tie and takes dinner from another party and materializes it in the dining room. He swipes a bottle of port from an ancient castle. With a swoosh he fills Betty's wardrobe with designer gowns that he has stripped from ladies at a rich party.

The guests are wondering how the Clarke's do it. One, (Mr Short, a government man) is calculating their coupon rations and tallying up food items.

A tiered cake arrives with a band; all stolen by Merlin.

Merlin moves in and continues to produce. They think they have a genie.

Mr Short, a government food inspector, arrives the next morning on an official visit concerning the Clarke's observed luxury. People start arriving, wanting their goods back. The band wants their food and cake. Gangsters demand their dames' dresses be returned.

Merlin flashes over the problem by manifesting a pile of money. In desperation to rid themselves of this trouble-making jester, Cyril adds banishing lines to the ode.

Merlin returns as a devilish trickster.

The gangsters discover their loot has gone from the safe, while Mr Short reports a safe full of coupons have disappeared. Betty begins to say a couple of lines of poetry in the hope of spoofing away Merlin but he spirits her away to Doomsday Hall.

Cyril is pursued by the gangsters and the government.

Wacky scenes in a cardboard castle follow.

Cyril shouts:

"I'll make you finally disappear By putting fireworks in your beer Then belching fireballs - reds and greens… You'll blow yourself to smithereens."

Cyril wakes from this fizzy dream to a birthday party and cold sausage.

It's an understandable tale of war-time rationing. One might consider writing odes to Merlin. Here is the ode if you are tempted:

Ode (composed by Cyril Fletcher who played Cyril Clarke)

When making magic, Merlin Mound

would start his bow tie spinning round

He found the magic quite a strain

for he took off like an aeroplane

So to weigh him down next to his skin

he wore combinations made of tin

Also wore a Norfolk suit

and one elastic-sided boot

Then the departed, most surprised

he found his combs. were magnetized

Before his guilty secret showed 

he had spun his tie and shed his load

(adding later as the adventures proceeded)

Your machinations make me sick

Go back and conjure for old nick

(then finally adds)

I'll make you finally disappear

by putting fireworks in your beer

Then belching fireballs - reds and greens...

You'll blow yourself to smithereens

The drifting music of Laura melts us into the portrait of a murdered beauty. We are infatuated. Vincent price walks into the scene and all we see is his usual handsome, tall and most charming presence. Judith Anderson claims your attention as she did in another unforgettable movie "Rebecca." Laura is cool and ravishing.

After all though, I was subdued by Clifton Web, as the splendidly audacious Waldo Lydecker. His words are choice and sautéed in lemon juice; a wonderful contrast to Laura. I must agree with him, when gum-chewing Detective Lieutenant Mark McPherson has become infatuated with the portrait of Laura, he sneers "Have you ever dreamed of Laura as you wife, sitting by your side at the policeman's ball or in the bleachers... or listening to the heroic story of how you got a silver shinbone from a battle with a gangster? (pauses) ...I see you have." Laura's image does not transform into a housewife.