Dry Rot

A shady, british gang tries to fix a horse race, among other crooked activities. Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix, Sidney James star as Alf, Fred, and Flash, who run the Honest Alf bookmaker. But they are anything but honest! and Danby (Lee Patterson) gets mixed up with them. some slapstick comedy, three stooges... british-style. it all gets silly, but it's light, fluffy fun, not to be taken at all seriously. running gag about the broken stairs. which never seem to get fixed. and Peggy Mount steals the show as the loud, annoying Sergeant Fire. some clever wordplay with french. and it's even funnier if you actually speak french. directed by Maurice Elvey. apparently he was a bigshot in the early, silent days of British film-making. and made the very first talking film at the studio. (Gaumont British Films was active 1898-1938) Dry Rot was one of Elvey's last films. it was fun to watch. shown on FilmRise channel.

My sense of humour must have changed quite a radically since I was 9 years old when I first saw this farce on stage at the Whitehall theater with my late parents with (if I can remember back 56 years ago), Leo Franklin in the part of Sid James.Yes, Brian Rix was in the cast and yes he lost his trousers in good old farce style.In fact I cannot think of Brian Rix in another dramatic role when il ne perdu pas ses pantalons!So After 55 years I bought this film out of curiosity to find out whether I would find any humour still existing in 2011.The answer was only mild echoes from my youth.We had very primitive humour before they were sharpened on Monty Python, Blackadder, satire and modern fearless stand up comedy from the likes of Ben Elton, Bernard Manning et all.

What I did find of interest was seeing Lee Paterson whose most famous role was as Group Capt.Turner, the Canadian fighter pilot from the film "Reach for the Sky" (1956) starring Kenneth More and Heather Sears as "Susan" in "Room at the Top" starring Lawrence Harvey.Sid was Sid James and Ronald Shiner played his usual ignorant cockney role.

Obviously the film has outside location scenes not possible in a theatre production especially shots of Sandown Park racecourse.Had I written this review when I was 9, I would have scored it 8/10 but now alas, I rated it only 5/10 as the humour seemed very primitive to my aging eyes.

I never intentionally went to see a Brian Fix film in the cinema,however I did go to see Ronnie Shiners films.For some reason I found him funny.In this film neither is funny.Did James played a bookie,now there's typecasting.Lee Paterson played a romantic lead and Michael Shelley played the sort of part he had played for all his career.Not so much dry as dull rot.

Another attempt to translate a popular stage farce to the screen runs into a familiar problem. Getting the long central section in the boarding house to work, particularly the business with the horse behind the sliding panel, would require much more adroit direction and editing. The comedy in this part is not allowed to flow, dissipating amusing performances from veterans Joan Haythorne and Michael Shepley. Brian Rix is not seen at his best and his one-note, relentlessly gormless character soon becomes tiresome, though Sid James can't fail to raise a few chuckles. But it's quite a likeable British comedy of its day and the final slapstick chase sequence with Peggy Mount at her most terrifying ends the proceedings with a bang.

The biggest problem with this movie is the run time. It's almost two hours long and the 'Three Stooges' impersonations get tiresome after the halfway mark.

But what lifts this up is the rather excellent script. The screenplay has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments but it's unfortunately buried beneath the overplayed performance of the farcical slapstick scenes.

The casting of the characters also lifts this fim... especially Sid James who is a joy to watch on film regardless of what he does or who he is... and here, he is 'Flash Harry!'

Despite a long career, Ronald Shiner is too old to play his part here... and Brian Rix was just starting out on his journey to stardom. However, the satellite characters keep this flick moving along. Brilliant Michael Shepley and Joan Haythorne as Colonel Wagstaff and his detached wife, Joan Sims as Beth the cleaner and there are others.

But like I say, it's just too long and even a 9-year-old boy eventually has to say that enough is enough when it comes to the relentless parade of theatrical slapstick.