The Navy Lark

After watching The Navy Lark which for years was a popular British radio show about the crew of a minesweeper on peacetime duty I now know where a lot of the comedy and the general idea for McHale's Navy came from. The situations seemed remarkably close.

Commander Cecil Parker has command of a minesweeper stationed upon a channel island of Boonsey which seems to have a mixed population of British and French. The mission is for the minesweeper to clear out all mines left from the late war, but that's been fulfilled a long time ago. But not according to Parker who sends in reports regularly about the work his crew is doing. Parker and the rest of the crew has grown to like it on the island and don't want to join the real Royal Navy any time soon.

The Captain Binghamton of The Navy Lark is Nicholas Phipps who wants to close down the Boonsey Island operation, but not if Parker and his trusty crew can stop him.

In the end through a series of misunderstandings the Navy believes that a revolution against British imperialism is taking place. What happens then is for you to see.

What I can see is why The Navy Lark was such a popular radio show in the United Kingdom. And I think American viewers will see the parallels with McHale's Navy and respond favorably.

All of the mines have long been cleared from the waters around the Channel Islands, so the Admiralty orders the crew of the sweeper Troutbridge paid off and the frigate decommissioned. That interferes with the idyllic existence of the crew, so they employ various maneuvers the frustrate orders...including inciting an independence movement.

It's based on the immensely popular BBC Radio Service comedy of the same name, and stars such dependable comedy players as Cecil Parker, Ronald Shiner, Leslie Phillips, and Hattie Jacques. Surprisingly, for a show that depended so much on catchphrases, double entendre and shtick, the only performer reprising his role from radio is Leslie Phillips; given that Jon Pertwee, Ronnie Barker, and Dennis Price were in the Radio cast, this seems odd, but the show ran for fifteen seasons over eighteen years.

The movie itself is a pleasant piece of nonsense, making fun of Navy politics and bureaucracy, offering many a chuckle along its length. It's no classic, but it's good fun.

Here is another great old British comedy from the 1950s about life in the British Navy just after WWII. I believe this film is up there with the Carry on films and "Doctor" series, indeed sharing some of the same cast such as Hattie Jacques, Cecil parker, Nicholas Phipps and Leslie Phillips. The Navy Lark should be given the respect of a release on DVD soon.

I remember watching the movie about ten years ago on TV and thoroughly enjoying it at the time. Its a great put your feet up, disengage brain and enjoy experience.

If you are a fan of Carry on you will also be a fan of the Navy Lark

Its quite good as I remember but apart from Leslie Phillips there are no other members of the radio cast in the film, Herbert Wilcox bought the rights during the broadcast of the first radio series which was written with Jon Pertwee as the leading actor, as long as fans of the radio version are not expecting this to have any resemblance to that then it comes over as a good British comedy. I don't believe it has ever been released on VHS or DVD , the only times I have seen it is either the middle of the night or I think its been broadcast on a Saturday afternoon. Hopefully this has been some use to people who would like to see it.

Before TV spin offs there came radio spin offs such as Life With The Lyons,The Grove family and 20Questions Murder Mystery.In those films the original radio cast was used but not here.Only Leslie Phillips survives,presumably because he was established as a film actor.As to the replacements i would have preferred to see Jon Pertwee and Ronnie Barker reprise their roles.However the addition of Cecil Parker is quite inspired as he was a truly great comedy actor in his later years.The film is quite funny up to the half way point but then sags with the rather unfunny revolution.Also i think that Ronnie Shiner was clearly an unfortunate choice for the CPO.He looks very aged and not really up to it.