One Way Pendulum

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!

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.

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.

I have longed to see this film and pestered Turner to show it for years, and finally they put it on in October 2011 as part of a Peter Yates series. It has a wonderful cast of British actors, including Graham Crowden (who appeared in the original play), George Cole, Mona Washbourne and Glyn Houston.

Jonathan Miller is cast against type as an almost nonverbal character who is training talking weighing machines to sing as a chorus. I was amazed to hear one of the songs they sang was Michael Brown's LIZZIE BORDEN from NEW FACES OF 1952! If you haven't read the play, you may have trouble following this when a living room turns into a court room; it must have been easier to grasp this watching it on stage where the room was assembled before the audience by the eccentric father.

Thank you, Turner, for finally letting the public see this!

I last saw this movie in 1970. I was discussing the funniest movies of all time and this one came to my head. Very bizarre movie, but incredibly funny. Absurd situations and dialog. If you liked Monty Python, this is your movie. I remember one particularly funny line. When asked by a friend why their son always dresses in black, the mother responded that they decided before he was born to dress him in white if he turned out to be black or to dress him in black if he turned out white. Her friend then asks if her husband has any Negro blood. She responds that she's not sure, but he does keep a lot of strange things in jars in the attic. Very non-PC, but it's all in good fun.