What a Whopper

I saw this film today and must say, it made me laugh. It didn't aim to be a major box office smash and it wasn't, but it was fun and relaxing to watch. I was amazed and glad to see so many great names appear, and it made a nice change to have a plot that wasn't so complex that it gave you a headache. I enjoyed it greatly and i know my cousin of eleven years old enjoyed it too!

Adam Faith can't sell his book about the Loch Ness Monster. All the publishers say that Nessie hasn't been seen in a long time. So he and Charles Hawtrey drive up to Scotland to fake evidence, picking up Marie France and Carole Lessley along the way. Once on site, their plans become mixed up with Sid James'. He's the owner of the pub they're staying at who's catching salmon out of season and selling them to a black marketeer.

The burlesque-like sexuality of this comedy is set in the first shot, with the camera following Miss Lessley on the street, with a close-up of her derriere. The rest of the movie seems to consist of CARRY ON hijinx, mixed with a plot which handles Faith's duplicity as if it is the most normal thing in the world. Credit, if that's the right word, with a script co-written by Terry Nation.

Faith was transitioning from a two-hit musical wonder to an actor. He seems to have had moderate success with the latter career. He died in 2003 at the age of 62.

I don't see why this film as so many bad reviews, It's a pleasing British comedy of it's era (1961) with a cracking cast.

It's the type of film you'd get on BBC2 on a wet afternoon when I was a kid.

How can any film with Sid James, Spike Milligan (Who seems to be in the wrong film...), Charles Hawtrey not be an easy pleasing nostalgic view?.

Maybe I'm of the last generation that appreciates this type of film...I hope not.

A young, raffish down-on-his-luck writer with a gimlet-sharp eye for the young ladies (Adam Faith) ambitiously hatches an ingeniously madcap plot to orchestrate a sighting of the infamously elusive Loch Ness Monster with a little help from his amiably eccentric, Nessie-faking beatnik chums in Gilbert Gunn's delightfully kooky 60s comedy caper! 'What A Whopper!' is not only endowed with a truly 'whopping' cast of iconic film and telly-box favourites, including Terry Scott, Clive Dunn, Wilfrid Brambell, Spike Milligan and bawdy comedy Lothario par excellence Sid James, and Blake's 7 showrunner Terry Nation's pratfall-perfect, wonderfully whacky, slapstick n' tickle script, while admittedly a small scale, frequently fishy cinematic affair is also a Loch of monster-sized laffs!

The soothingly nostalgic British comedy 'What A Whopper!' is atmospherically set against the bucolic majesty of mountainous, myth-laden Scotland, a suitably bracing backdrop for the hilariously outlandish hi-jinks and blissfully bonkers buffoonery of our bungling beatniks! Their intrepid attempt to contrive a media frenzy about the sudden return of the legendary lake dwelling diva Nessie not infrequently inspires some especially inspired lunacy by our endearingly shambolic, far from expert fraudsters! Frothily factor in some dreamy sing-along Adam Faith pop, alongside no less fine compositions by music maestro Laurie Johnson, heroically hyping up the crowd-pleasing multitude of amusingly silly rough N' tumble comedy shenanigans, all being breezily directed by the talented Gilbert Gunn guarantees that fans of vintage British comedy will find the galloping gag-fest 'What A Whopper!' a warmly-fuzzy feel-good delight from start to finish.

I have just watched this film on b.b.c 2 , it was on a Wednesday morning at 10:30 which I feel is about right for this type of film, definitely a film of it's era with a good if somewhat unusual (in some aspects )cast. Spike Milligan seems to be a little out of place in this movie and Sid James as a Scottish hotel owner is a little strange as well,but if you can overlook the obvious flaws and not be to critical of this movie you can just enjoy an hour and a half of pure nostalgia spotting the various stars many of whom turned up later on in there careers on television,also surprised to see Terry Nation involved. p.s theme tune made me cringe!