The Girl on the Boat

Interesting little piece that I watched for the second time in a few years, with Sir Norman stepping away from his usual film company and breaking away from his normal 'Pitkin' character. Very good he is too, as the upper class twit who falls head over heels in love with a woman who seems to hold the world record at engagements. Excellent support from the rest of the mostly British cast including Richard Briers, Sheila Hancock and the ever-reliable Bernard Cribbins. At the heart of the story is the shallowness of the upper crust which P.G. Wodehouse always captured so well.The script is fine and the direction very good. I one for certainly enjoyed it and on the second viewing even more so. A lovely way to spend an hour and half. They don't make actors such as Sir Norman these days, more's the pity.

Sam Marlowe travels to America to try and convince his Aunt to rent out her summer house in England. When his Aunt discovers Sam's cousin Eustace is planning to get married secretly she sends them both back to England. On the transatlantic ship Sam meets and falls for Eustace ex-fiancée, Billie and when they arrive in England love is a many confusing thing!

Based on a P.G. Woodhouse play this film is a very different beast from Wisdom's usual films where he plays working class mugs who come good in the end. Here he tries to be the upperclasses and it feels funny seeing him in this type of thing. The film does try to have some of his trademark type of routine but really this is all about the dialogue as the physical aspects have had to be written in.

It is still an enjoyable film and is quite witty. However fans of Wisdom may not appreciate his change of direction (even if was only for one movie). But it does allow those critics of Wisdom to see him in a different type of film (to an extent) and he just about caries it off - mainly thanks to the good cast around him who do fit in nicely with this material.

Wisdom himself seems comfortable in this different role and does well enough, but he does slip easily into his old impressions and falling down routines whenever he gets a chance. Martin is excellent as Bennett and faces such as Briers, Hancock and Cribbins more than make up for the loss of regulars such as Mr Grimsdale and those characters played by Desmonde.

Overall this is not a Wisdom picture by definition and it doesn't quite succeed as a Woodhouse adaptation either. However it is passable as both and is well worth a watch.

Sir Norman Wisdom is perhaps best known in terms of films for those he made for the Rank organisation, so this film remains a bit of a rare gem.

What's nice about it is that we get to see Norman play something a bit different from the Gump character he played in the Rank films. It's a different sort of role, but he excels in it.

The story is well paced, and there's some funny moments ('We're British'), not to mention a whole string of well known faces for audiences to look at and go "oh, don't they look young".

Sir Norman is much missed.

Norman Wisdom is one of those sort of comedians you either love or hate.I fall in the later category.The fact that he plays a different sort of character alters my judgment of him not one bit.I had never heard of this film let alone seen it.Against my better judgment I decided to give it a go with an open mind.I felt boredom setting in within 10 minutes of the start.Going and making a cup of tea or watching this lying down instead of sitting up didn't remove this numb feeling.It is difficult to understand how Wisdom and the film could be so totally unfunny.This truly has to be one of the worst films that I have seen in a very long time.Unless you have the misfortune to be a Wisdom fan the best advice I can give is to avoid this.

The twenties-style title sequence by John Baker tells us this no ordinary Norman Wisdom vehicle as Our Norman ventures into P. G. Wodehouse territory with Wisdom trading in his gimp suit for Norfolk jacket & plus fours to play a patrician bounder. (The film fell flat so the experiment was never repeated.)

Further evidence that this was a venture off the beaten track is the presence of a completely different supporting cast with fresh-faced young Richard Briers in the Wooster part, Sheila Hancock as a big game Hunter and author of 'Elephant Hunting in the Punjab' with aspirations to enter Parliament while Millicent Martin in the title role shows the promise soon fulfilled as the chanteuse in 'That Was the Week That Was'.