The Clue of the Missing Ape

A vintage Childrens Film Foundation travelogue with a lovely score by Jack Beaver and making good use of Gibraltar, with George Cole anticipating Flash Harry as the obligatory gormless henchman. Even at this early stage the kid with the brains is the girl.

This is the second Children Film Foundation Film I have seen and is a good one. Naval cadet Roy Savage pulls a pilot out of a crashed airplane and is rewarded with a trip to Gibraltar. There he hooks up with Nati Banda and the two of them tangle with a comically inept band of saboteurs; among their plots, they are trying to poison the Rock's Barbary Apes, since everyone knows that when the apes leave, so will the British.

Director James Hill gives us plenty of location shooting on Gibraltar, lots of flag-waving action by the British navy in action and doesn't stint us on activity by Miss Banda, who is not in the film simply to tag along along. It's highly enjoyable kiddy fare.

1953, but no street kids here playing on bombsites. After a very brief start in the English countryside our boy hero is off to Gibraltar and soon investigating mysterious deaths of the Barbary apes, and uncovering a linked deeper terrorist plot against the Empire! He's helped by a terrific little local girl-Nati Banda-of whom there is absolutely no further information as to her career/life.

Of course, the adults don't believe, or are too busy, to listen to the children, who get involved in quite serious chases and other hairy looking escapades. Despite the (unintended?) comic relief of an incompetent baddy played by George Cole, the plot has a few nasty episodes, which must have been quite worrying to the young audience of the time.

The film has interesting shots of the underground complexes of the Rock and is also quite valuable as a record of the British Naval activities then, and, of course, the social customs and conventions.

What a treasure trove the CFF archive is.

An earlier Children's Film Foundation effort, not one of their most spectacular or enervating but still enjoyable to a large degree. This one boasts an excellent and unusual setting in the Rock itself which is good because the plot is quite typical of its kind, although with a harder edge than usual. There are at least two excellent stunts involving kids that I wasn't expecting along with tougher villains who don't mind using guns to get their way. Plenty of action and incident and an amusing George Cole just on the cusp of stardom.

On inspecting the title of this film i thought it might be good for a laugh....I wasn't wrong! The models and effects are hilarious I know it was made 50 years ago but trust me you will laugh!

OOK! OOK!