One Way Pendulum

The weirdness of this film is made all the more bizarre by its seemingly normal cast. The behaviour of each member of the family is eccentric in the extreme. It's not side splitting funny, rather I can't believe they've done that funny. Eric Sykes is a comic genius, who can just make me laugh by just being there, the rest of the family aren't particularly funny but it's their eccentric behaviour which makes them so outrageous. George Cole and Peggy Mount are legends. To say that this film inspired Pythons, maybe, although it's a lot weirder than python humour for the time. It certainly showcases British eccentricity and sets the tone for the comic acts that followed.

The original play by N F Simpson (who also wrote "A Resounding Tinkle" is even weirder! Mr Groomkirby is working his way through a series of historic buildings ("When we had Stonehenge and people called us Druids!), Sylvia actually wants to look like an ape so that she can touch her toes without bending down etc. The plot is a conflation of literalisms ("into the jaws of Death" is no mere metaphor here) and bizarrrerie by modified context, e.g. the son and father have hobbies such as model building, collecting and choir training whilst the teenage(?)daughter worries of over her looks.John Cleese saw this film in the cinema in Weston Supermare and it seems to have stayed with him ever since. If you haven't seen it you have missed a true classic of surrealist comedy!

I first saw this weird film in the early 70's and was aghast at its strangeness. A father (Eric Sykes) who is obsessed with the Old Bailey and is building a replica in his front room, a son who nicks 'speak your weight' machines and adjusts their innards so they sing together like a choir ('fifteen stone, ten pounds!') and an attractive young daughter who thinks she looks like a monkey. Add in a live-in Aunt who thinks she's waiting for a train and Mrs Gantry (the wonderful Peggy Mount) who 'pops in' to eat leftover food (a service for which she makes a charge) and we have what could be a very disturbing film if it wasn't so funny. This film's screenplay must be the product of a disturbed mind, but it is so well done by the cast and director that it works brilliantly. We have a VHS recording of this, made from a 1980's TV showing - I really must dig it out!

A very odd film along the lines of the bed sitting rooms.

Eric Sykes (a film is always worth a watch if Eric is in it) plays an insurance man who is building a copy of the Old Bailey in his living room while his son teaches speak your weight machines to sing. Yes you heard that right but don't let it put you off.

It's a little gem that's well worth 90 minutes of your time.

This is an absolutely bizarre crazy film. You watch puzzled (for me) till the conversation about having arms shortened to fit sleeves and the light bulb brightens:) Saw it in an art theater in the States about 2 years after it was released and was blown away. I have been telling people about it for years and am ecstatic about it being acknowledged as even existing (it was invisible on the Web for a very long time - you had to go to Beyond the Fringe and work backwards) If I could find it it any playable format I would get it in an instant - track the strangeness picked up in later 60's films - Beatles included. If it ever surfaces and you are into 'quirky-ness' be sure to sit back and enjoy.