The Plank

The Plank is a slap stick short featuring Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper.

Sykes wrote and directed this nearly silent short film and managed to get an all star cast. Keep your eyes peeled for Stratford Johns, Roy Castle, Jim Dale, Jimmy Tarbuck, Hattie Jacques, Graham Stark, Jimmy Edwards, John Junkin and other familiar faces of the 1960s and 1970s.

Sykes and Cooper are two workmen, when one of them uses the last floorboard for heating and they go out to buy a replacement.

They return to the house with the plank on top of a van, but the journey is fraught with unexpected difficulties. The short film is a series of slapstick routines involving the plank and featured guest stars.

However some of the scenes do not quiet work and go on for too long such as driving around and trying to get out of the timber yard.

Also the scenes with the female hitchhiker in the truck now looks distasteful.

I just happened to tape "The Plank" when it was last shown on British terrestrial television (BBC2 5/12/95) and I've held onto this treasure ever since! My family and I love it to bits.We are however die-hard British 50s/60s/and 70/s-silent film fans, e.g. Futtock's End/A Home of Your Own/Rhubarb Rhubarb etc.etc. One of the main appeals of it is that you don't have to listen to it-it's very easy to watch if you've got young kids doing their own thing in the room with you.(they'll look up every now and then and laugh at certain bits). There is now available a DVD of "The Plank" Uncut which comes out at 51 Min's allegedly; this must go some way to outlining it's obvious popularity. I definitely do not prefer the 70's T.V. remake of this as it is so obviously a dumbed down/going through the motions version.The original is the dog's ........! There is however an interesting angle about the re-make and that is several of the original locations have been re-visited so I habitually acknowledge them all each time I view the re-make(Is that sad or good?) Just had to write an uplifting review as the first review doesn't do this justice and is a tad unfair to me.

Many of us will have seen loads of films where the acting is wooden - but here, it is meant to be! Eric Sykes assembles a reasonable cast of stalwart British comics to regale us us with the adventures of the humble plank! Together with Tommy Cooper, the pair of workmen take us on a guided tour of what this plank (or it's identical twin) gets up to in it's wide and varied life... There is virtually no dialogue - much of it relying on the quirky Brian Fahey score and the odd mumble that set the standards for many an inaudible television drama being made even now. It does recycle the joke once too often, but it still has a charm about it. The singing opening titles; closing windows to keep out the cold - not that they have any glass in them, and the simplicity of things getting stuck, walloped and wedged is fun for a while, but that simplicity struggles to sustain the humour after the first 15-20 minutes or so. Still, it is an interesting and engaging example of what made us Brits laugh in the late 1960s.

Sadly, and quite rudely, leask81 seems to have got it all wrong. The Plank was made in 1967 by some of the finest British comedians of the day - 'poms' or not. His comment was posted in February 2006 so, quite naturally, it would seem out-dated. In fact, any viewing later than 1976 would ... have you tried watching Paul Hogan's early stuff?

The sheer enjoyment out of watching the story of this errant plank of wood and its two clumsy handymen is not only a gem of British comedy, but is also a bar over which not many comedy performers since then have managed to clear.

A highly enjoyable 'short' and one for the collector.

This is a hilarious piece of nonsense from a cast of very talented actors/comedians. Eric Sykes is one of the greatest comedy actors/writers that Britain has produced and this film should not be slated because it seems dated by todays standards (it was made over 40 years ago). The plot is simple, the story is simple, but the simplicity of it is its charm. It is a film purely designed to entertain and to make one laugh, it has no message or underlying agenda, other than to bring a smile to people of all ages and nationality. The cast are all masters of their craft, the pick of the 60's comedians, and all 'proper' comedians, they did not have to resort to shock tactics and foul language to get the audiences attention, unlike todays comics. It seems to have stood the test of time, for few people have never heard of it and it has often been referred to a a 'British Classic' .... and deservedly so.