La dolce vita del soldato Joe

Corbett and his spivvy gang are faced with the tough choice of the big house or boot camp as 'reward' for their criminal endeavours. After opting for the latter, and following a failed attempt to avoid their fate with forged med certs, an hour or so ensues of largely mirth-free 'rude awakening' mishaps.

Corbett and his entourage (including the ever-hideous Reg 'Sweaty Combover' Varney) are not an attractive gang. Imagine the George Cole character from Launder & Gilliat's St. Trinian's series having a whole movie to himself, without the checks and balances of the other range of eccentric and distinguished protagonists around him. If that appeals to you then you may love it.

The film falls into that void of 60s British cinema wherein everything except prestige productions (mostly enhanced by a healthy injection of the Dollar) and social realism fell flat. Comedy of the era by and largely now fails; an unwanted stopgap between the decline of the wit-laden riches of the 40s and 50s, and the embracing of the puerile by the general public with each successively vulgar Carry On entry, as the series progressed towards the 70s.

The few laughs are wrung out of the army game's reliable cast of spit-and-polish character players who deserve better lines and routines, and 10 years earlier in a similar plot, would have been given them to work with. But all the film serves to do now is put paid to any notions, held by cultists in their favour, that the writing/production/directing team of Launder & Gilliat are entitled to auteur status within the 'classic' Brit Cinema heritage canon.

In an ironic way this serves a purpose, as all they otherwise did of note during these twilight years was ever-more dispiriting cash-ins on the St. Trinians franchise that, due to the worthiness of the original film, may nevertheless nostalgically cloud the memories of the team's defenders.

This film proves that the vein of humour of army comedies had been mined to exhaustion by the time this film was released.There is Harry H Corbett doing an audition for the role of Steptoe which would typecast him for life.Stanley Baxter who would find stardom on TV with his Hollywood parodies,sadly underused here.The Barnet who attained stardom on in On The Buses.Bill Fraser who had also become a TV star playing a Sergeant in the army game.Yet despite all of this and the track record of Launder and Gilliat this film is virtually a laugh free zone.The story is full of tired clichés with Corbetts role proving to be more irritating than anything else.

Not one of the best British films of the period. The lead actors were all to become British household names in the 1970s and 1980s but there is very little to show what they would become here. All in all, very little to cause offence but then not much to entertain either. This film has a feeling of being made very much earlier than in actuality and as a result feels staid and out of date.