Helter Skelter

A mad cap comedy with many stars taking very small parts. The story line is pretty weak but the fast pace and non stop incidents makes this a very entertaining film and the time goes quickly.

In the days when having a million dollars made someone rich, Carol Marsh is a carefully brought up girl who has developed the hiccups. Aided by figurative characters, she and mama's boy BBC broadcaster David Tomlinson fall in love, but how can they find true love when they live in an Olsen & Johnson HELLZAPOPPIN' world?

Gerald Thomas' second movie is a crazy comedy filled with a lot of well-known comics of the era doing their shticks. There are lots of good ones, including Terry-Thomas doing his 'Technical Hitch' routine and Jimmy Edwards showing Walter Forde silent comedies, but just as you're getting into the rhythms of the ridiculous revue, the film makers switch gears to advance the ridiculous 'Love Among the Hiccups' plot, and just when that seems to be going someplace, it halts to show us a ridiculous series of mishaps at a haunted castle or the BBC. I would imagine that if you were a member of a contemporary audience, you would be charmed to see your favorite players interrupt this pre-Goon-Show nonsense, but if you're not, it seems more chaotic than funny.

I picked up this unusual DVD, very, very cheap at Deptford market which I thought I would give it a look because I used to like Jimmy Edwards when I was very young and I also noticed that it was written by Patrick Campbell I also thought I liked. It turns out of course that Campbell, back in the day, he had a serious speech impediment and nevertheless delighted TV audiences then. In this film we have the lovely Carol Marsh and here had a bad case of hiccups and that was more or less the story although I noticed that she had been in Brighton Rock (1948) and later Horror of Dracula (1958). Unfortunately I didn't find Jimmy Edwards so wonderful but most of the other comedians were astonishing and Ralph Thomas was really good getting this in and around with some intelligent and brilliant situations. Later on he would direct the 'Doctor' films and some of the early 'Carry on' ones as well. Of course it is the funny men really in this one as, Jon Pertwee, Terry-Thomas (astonishing), Wilfred Hyde-White (someone has fun with his name having a turn as Dr Jekyll and Hyde!), Michael Medwin, Harry Secombe (splendid and before his rather fat days) and Richard Wattis. Great and very funny and especially creative like the silent film joke and the people having fun with the radio and people could not be seen. I even found that Naunton Wayne was uncredited in this and I'd see him just last night with Obsession the same year.

This is a riotous and sometimes chaotic comedy that was probability years ahead of its time. The story is a straightforward romantic comedy about a woman who can't cure her hiccoughs, she is told that a fright will cure her ills so she visits a haunted house.

However what differentiates this film from comedies of this time is that it is littered with cameo roles from some of the all times greats of British film comedy.... Terry-Thomas, Wilfred Hyde-White, Jimmy Edwards and Jon Pertwee (twice) to name a few.

This film is directed by Ralph Thomas of the 'Doctor' films and it is easy to see many parallels with those classic movies.

I watched Helter Skelter about 30 years ago at the time when Monty Python was in its first series. Helter Skelter is equally amusing, but in an innocent way that I suppose would now be sneered at! Interesting at the time though to compare it with 'Python'. I recall that the plot centres around a 'hooray henry' character who for some reason cannot stop the 'hiccups'. His girlfriend (can't remember the actress's name) tries to find a cure or solution. No complications in the plot! The movie is filmed extensively inside the BBC in what I assume must be the building in Great Portland Street. Some of the scenes are extremely funny but generally the comedy is rather dated, still enjoyable though.

I recall one of the characters (I think maybe the leading lady's aunt) portrays a typical British girls public school sports mistress. Again I cannot recall the actress's name, but she is easily the funniest character in the movie. An enormous lady, who rides around on a tiny motor scooter, bizarre! Very funny though, and her best line is in recommending a psychiatrist to cure the hooray's hiccups because "he cured me completely of collecting hockey sticks". Terry-Thomas is also very funny, playing a pre-pop disk jockey who smashes all his records and is forced to impersonate the various acts.

As mentioned, the comedy would now be considered dated, but this zany movie has stuck in my memory since 1970 and I wish I could get to see it again.