What a Whopper

I don't see why this film as so many bad reviews, It's a pleasing British comedy of it's era (1961) with a cracking cast.

It's the type of film you'd get on BBC2 on a wet afternoon when I was a kid.

How can any film with Sid James, Spike Milligan (Who seems to be in the wrong film...), Charles Hawtrey not be an easy pleasing nostalgic view?.

Maybe I'm of the last generation that appreciates this type of film...I hope not.

Heart-throb pop star Adam Faith ("Tony") is a struggling author who cannot get his book about the famed Loch Ness monster published. It purports to be a serious work and naturally all the publishers know there's no such beastie. Determined to prove them wrong, he and some pals fake some photos and soon the world and it's wife is heading to verify the sightings. Now as a Scot, this irked on a couple of levels - not least Faith's appalling attempt at the accent and director Gilbert Gunn's determination not to use any Scottish actors at all, as far as I could see. Sidney James as the Highland hotel owner really did take the proverbial biscuit. Despite these rather obvious, doubtless budget-driven clangers, at times it's actually quite a fun, light-hearted, wheeze but it's really let down by the fairly stilted acting across the board which is almost as ropey as the stereotype-ridden script. Needless to say, the filming never left the home counties and as for the theme song - well, least said. It does have a nostalgia value - simple comedy around an even more simple story, but it's still not very good.

I have just watched this film on b.b.c 2 , it was on a Wednesday morning at 10:30 which I feel is about right for this type of film, definitely a film of it's era with a good if somewhat unusual (in some aspects )cast. Spike Milligan seems to be a little out of place in this movie and Sid James as a Scottish hotel owner is a little strange as well,but if you can overlook the obvious flaws and not be to critical of this movie you can just enjoy an hour and a half of pure nostalgia spotting the various stars many of whom turned up later on in there careers on television,also surprised to see Terry Nation involved. p.s theme tune made me cringe!

This is a family film with light humour and some lovely remembrancers of the sixties era, with baby doll nightgowns and pink angora sweaters...

Some early appearances by later UK comedy greats- an early old-man Clive Dunn, some early Wilfred Brambell etc make it worth watching.

The story about the Loch Ness Monster is pure tosh but the film never takes itself seriously at all and it is similar to a rather toned down very early Carry On film, relatively gentle.

English humour from the 60's.

A silly British comedy written by Terry Nation rife with leering sexual and regional stereotypes (like Adam Faith in a kilt and fake beard adopting a Scottish accent pretending to be 'Hamish MacSporran'), that actually went to Loch Ness for a few shots (although with outdoor night scenes obviously shot in broad daylight).

The plot is based on a central fallacy, since Faith is reduced to faking a photograph of Nessie on the Serpentine as he can't get his book on the subject published because the Great Orm hasn't been seen for ages; yet the simple fact that this film was being made attests to the current topicality of the Loch Ness Monster. And his popularity as a pop idol accounts for his presence in this nonsense woodenly playing the lead; compensated for by a supporting cast ranging from Amanda Barrie & Trevor Peacock seen uncredited in long shot even before the credits (which do include Peacock for the original story) are over, Jamaican actor Lloyd Reckford in his only credited film role prior to the 1990s, Spike Milligan as a tramp, Terry Scott in his days typecast as a police sergeant to Fyfe Robertson and the late Freddie Frinton (the latter totally forgotten to any Briton under sixty but a household name in Germany thanks to his annual appearances every New Year's Eve in 'Dinner for One').

(SPOILERS COMING:) It's a typical bit of cynicism on Nation's part that once Faith claims to see Nessie, everybody standing alongside him on the shore jumps on the bandwagon by claiming to see him too. While the actual sound and visual effects of Nessie himself are in fact rather good.