A Home of Your Own

I'm biased! I worked on this film and therefore know all the ins and outs. It was made for very little money and qualified for 'Double Eady' and that helped make it one of the most successful pics of all times, (returns as % of production cost).

It premiered at London's Odeon (Leicester Sq) as second feature to 'A Shot in the Dark'. It is the only time I have seen a cinema audience give a standing ovation to any picture - let alone a 4 reeler.

For about two years afterwards it was featured on cinema billboards as support film, a testament to its popularity.

This film started out as a sponsored comedy short for the Construction company Tersons but such was Jay Lewis's and Johnny Whytes's expertise that it soon became clear from the rushes that a masterpiece was in the making and it was finished with the cinema in mind.

The pic is still seen from time to time on UK TV and it is well worth setting the VCR.

Of course the joke is that 40 years on, the same comedy is still to be seen on our building sites and men digging up the same hole in the roads.

I saw this movie first run at the Guild Theater on 50th Street in New York, around the corner of Radio City Music Hall. It was the bottom half of a forgettable double bill with an Aldo Ray movie entitled Johnny Nobody.

My father, mother, sister and I wanted to go to the show at the Music Hall but it was sold out. So, we went to the Guild. We used to see the best comedies there...all of the Ealing comedies would play there...Carry On, I'm Alright, Jack...Kill or Cure, Two-Way Stretch, etc.

So we endure the first Aldo Ray movie and then A Home of Your Own begins and seriously, on my word of honor, we laughed so hard and so loud, that the Guild's usher threatened to throw us out of the theater. It rocked us so hard that we still...40 years later...consider it the funniest motion picture we have ever seen.

I recently contacted Gannet Films and they are considering a general video and DVD release possibly late 2005.

It would make my parents very happy as they are now well into their upper 80s! We've been looking for it for 40 years.

I can only imagine reading the script and laughing out loud.

I first saw this classic film about 1965. The second time I saw it was in the Queen's Cinema, Union Street, Aberdeen (now unfortunately a nightclub). I had intended to take my then girlfriend (now my ex-wife) to see Carry On Cleo at the Cinema House (unfortunately now also a nightclub). However, I got the cinemas mixed up and we entered the Queen's Cinema. As soon as we sat down I was in raptures, saying, 'I've seen this before'. It's a predecessor of Eric Sykes 'The Plank' and is very amusing. The scenes where the Electricity, Gas and Water companies dig up the same piece of road, install what they are putting in and repair the surface, watched over by the same policeman with his trusty bicycle is a comment on the lack of co-ordination of utility companies which I assume still continues to this day. The water divining scene where it is discovered that the hazel twig is twitching to Bill Fraser doing what was natural in a trench before portable toilets is a joy. Also Ronnie Barker laying the cement only for the tea boy playing his transistor radio loudly to leave tyre tracks from his dumper truck as he distributes the tea. Eventually this happens so often that Barker eventually throws a wobbly and dances over and throws himself all over the cemented surface. I think it's Bernard Cribbins who is the stone mason producing the plaque as when he is nearly finished he gives it one last chip and, of course, it shatters. Eventually when Fred Emney (as the Mayor) unveils the finished plaque there is a slight spelling mistake (Pubic Subscription instead of Public) which leads to shocked gasps from the various dignitaries assembled for the ceremony. I have not seen this movie for decades and would love it to be issued on a DVD as I could watch it over and over again. By the way, the main feature was Mr Moses with Robert Mitchum and Carrol Baker which my girlfriend had seen before but I hadn't. Perhaps our different tastes in movies had something to do with our eventual marriage breakdown - but I suspect there may have been other factors!!

I recall going to see this when it came out as I took a girl I had been trying to date for some time along with me. Sadly I laughed so much she never went out with me again. I was a Carpenter at the time working on a building site in Ruislip which looked very much like the one in the movie so it was even more amusing. It is full of hilarious moments some of which take some time to pan out. An example is when the Gas board come along and dig up the trenches to load gas piping. Some time later the Electricity board come along and dig in the same hole. Even though you know what is going to happen ( a big bang) it is even funnier when it does. I would love to get this on Video. It ranks along side films such as The Plank as one of those low budget gems that only the Brits seems to make. Sadly now some of the so called comedies that we are supposed to laugh at probably have a bigger budget for the opening credits than this little gem cost to make.

A HOME OF YOUR OWN,released in the mid 1960's,started a trend of wordless featurette comedies in Britain(SAN FERRY ANN,THE PLANK,OUCH!,RHUBARB,etc.),and this,the first in such a style is arguably the best of them all.Jam-packed with familiar British comedy actors like Peter Butterworth,Bill Fraser,Bernard Cribbins and Richard Briers,it is sometimes a trifle repetitive and over-stretched,but has enough well-timed and genuinely amusing incident to linger in the mind long afterwards.Some of the situations and slapstick are perhaps rather obvious,but it is performed and directed with such vigour and panache that such minor quibbles are quickly forgotten.The undoubted highlight is a superbly done bit of comic business with the late,great Ronnie Barker as an increasingly enraged cement mixer.At this stage,Barker was still a relatively minor comic performer,but his work in this film helped his career further on to bigger things.His is probably the best performance out of many fine comic bits in the film.

It was originally released as a support feature to A SHOT IN THE DARK,the second 'Pink Panther' film featuring Peter Sellers and George Sanders.During the premiere,Sanders apparently told the film's producer Bob Kellett:''This film's bloody better that ours!.....''.An assessment that is perhaps a trifle unfair as A SHOT IN THE DARK undoubtedly has it's share of very funny scenes,but A HOME OF YOUR OWN is shorter and arguably a little sweeter.