Le roi de la pagaille

Norman Wisdom and Margaret Rutherford together: movie heaven! Unfortunately the lovable Mr. Wisdom and the delightful Ms. Rutherford share little screen time in "Trouble in Store," Wisdom's first screen outing as his bumbling on-screen persona, Norman. Humble department-store stock clerk with ambitions to become a window dresser encounters the new store manager and hilarious complications pile on even more hilarious complications. Like a classic Laurel & Hardy routine, Norman competes with another window dresser and manages to destroy a china display to the delight of passing onlookers on the street. Margaret Rutherford is a congenital scene-stealer and, as Miss Bacon, a dotty shoplifter, her delivery and facial expressions are hysterically funny. When Norman helps her from the store laden with stolen suitcases stuffed with the store's goods, the store manager thanks her for her business, and so do we.

"Trouble in Store" also features Jerry Desmonde as the store manager and Lana Morris as Norman's love interest; both later worked with Wisdom in "Man of the Moment." Wisdom is in fine voice on a couple songs, one of which he penned himself; he was obviously a man of endless talents. Norman's effortless pratfalls and slapstick are wonderful. Although less sentimental and more upbeat, Wisdom likely owed much to such great clowns of the silent era as Charlie Chaplin. The always-endearing Norman delivers the comedy goods as usual, and "Trouble in Store" was a good vehicle for him.

Though now slightly over fifty years old, Sir Norman's film debut remains one of his very best movies. 'Trouble In Store' finds the clown in top form, as a stock room worker who wishes to move up in the world and marry the girl of his dreams. Whether roller-skating behind a fast moving bus or crooning his biggest hit (and signature tune) 'Don't Laugh At Me', Norman demonstrates the charisma that made him such a major box office attraction.

Backing Norman is the fantastic Margaret Rutherford, who in only a handful of scenes steals the picture (and everything else!) as an elderly shoplifter. The very lovely Lana Morris also scores as the object of Sir Norman's affections. Lana comes across in this picture so well that it is a real pity that she did not have a better movie career.

Highlights range from Wisdom's window dressing 'duel' with Michael Ward, a very catchy duet with Lana (Norman once again showing us his great singing voice) and a fun Western parody climax. This movie seemed to fly by and is probably Sir Norman's most enjoyable film.

I saw this on UK TV today for the first time in many years and was reminded of the great enjoyment that Norman Wisdom has always provided. This movie now seems very dated and full of the flavour of early 50's Britain.

I'll always remember the 'pill swallowing' sequence and we always used it as a joke with our own kids when they had to take pills and struggled.

Seeing it again I became aware of a number of throw-away lines with sexual connotations that now seem quite modern.

The movie is firmly rooted in the British class system - but here the 'common' working man takes the p*** out of all the establishment figures and institiutions AND wins good in the end AND gets his girl.

No wonder Norman Wisdom was such a hero in Russia and Albania (apparently)!

See this movie if you haven't already .. enjoy it for what it is and what it represented.

Norman Wisdom's brand of comedy is an acquired taste; for those unfamiliar with his particular shtick, he's basically the British counterpart to Jerry Lewis - with all that it entails! I had watched a few of his films over the years but it'd been some time since then, so I decided to rent a 12-DVD Box Set (on Region 2) available from my local outlet - which, actually, I did mainly for my father's sake who used to lap his films up...and is already halfway into the collection as I write this!

Anyway, his debut feature is pleasant enough and is actually considered by many to be his best vehicle (though still featuring a couple of sentimental songs). In itself, simple-minded but occasionally inventive (particularly the window-dressing 'competition', the "sale day" rush and the climactic rounding-up of the bad guys) and with a premise that's seen service in countless 'comedian' films - Charlie Chaplin's short THE FLOORWALKER (1917) and again later in MODERN TIMES (1936), Harold Lloyd's SAFETY LAST (1923), The Marx Bros.' THE BIG STORE (1941) and Jerry Lewis himself in WHO'S MINDING THE STORE? (1963). Here the star is nicely abetted by Jerry Desmonde as his flustered boss (often serving as the brunt of Wisdom's accident-prone gags) and Margaret Rutherford as a charming elderly shoplifter.

When a major London department store is taken over by a new manager, Mr Freeman, stock boy Norman finds himself out of a job after a series of misunderstandings. He wins back his job in time to get embroiled in an internal robbery of the store.

This was the first of the Norman Wisdom/Rank comedies that became an annual money spinner from the 50's well into the 1960's. The plot is rarely important and here we have a mix of romance and robbery that supports the usual mix of accidents and misunderstandings. The romance and the robbery don't really work, the romance seems to happen far too quickly while the robbery is tacked on at the end.

Wisdom is as excellent as always - his uncoordinated, shy, eager, accident prone and misunderstood personality allows him to have a series of funny set pieces. It's an acquired taste, but if you like the short of slapstick humour then Wisdom will appeal to you. Wisdom regular Jerry Desmonde is good as the store manager and Margaret Rutherford (second in the cast list for a very small role) is funny as an upper-class shop lifter. The only weak link is Lister as Norman's love interest, she's a little light and her character changes depending on how the story is going.

Overall it's not a masterpiece but it's a good Norman Wisdom comedy. It won't appeal to everyone but it's a gentle family comedy from another age.