Une bombe pas comme les autres

A murder, a deliberate mix-up with house numbers, a vacuum-cleaner salesman and a young bride-to-be in a compromising position. Oh, and a pompous politician about to be blown up by an assassin with a bomb in a wireless. It gets even better when these people are played by George Cole, Jill Adams, Raymond Huntley and of course the great Alastair Sim. This is a farce in the true British sense, with lots of running about, hiding of bodies and misunderstandings. Add to the mix Terry-Thomas making the most of his modest role and the much underrated Colin Gordon playing a stiff BBC announcer on the edge of a nervous breakdown and we have the recipe for a wonderful Sunday afternoon film. Britain made this type of film with great aplomb in the 50's, perhaps because our National Character was so 'send-upable' at the time and we didn't mind laughing at ourselves. We don't make them now, which is why we go out and buy DVD's of 50-year-old comedies that have no equal. Superb.

The Green Man is one of those movies that used to get a good deal of play on PBS stations but now seems to have disappeared. Too bad. It's a very funny example of wicked British black humor. The always excellent Alastair Sim plays an assassin attempting to blow up a fatuous politician who has found a hide-away for a tryst with his timid secretary. Raymond Huntley (perhaps best known as the family lawyer in "Upstairs, Downstairs") delivers the most hilarious soliloquy ever heard on the practices of English gastronomy in general and chopped toad as a delicacy in particular. Colin Gordon, familiar as one of the few actors to appear twice as Number Two in The Prisoner, does a send up of a rather precious poet who resembles T. S. Eliot. Wish this would appear on DVD.

This little gem ranks with MONSIEUR VERDOUX and THE LADYKILLERS as the best black comedies.

The hilarious Alastair Sim stars as Hawkins, a freelance assassin who merrily goes round the world blowing up pompous twits. He runs into trouble, however, when he writes some notes on his girl friend's (Avril Angers) desk, not knowing there is carbon paper underneath. His notes about her boss' (Raymond Huntley) stay at an inn called The Green Man arouse her suspicions.

She investigates but goes to the wrong (and vacant) house runs gets bumped off by Hawkins' associate who then and runs into a pushy vacuum cleaner salesman (George Cole). When the new owner (Jill Adams) suddenly appears, the two begin a hilarious chase to tracks down Hawkins at The Green Man and stop the assassination.

Of course they have no idea who Hawkins is and Huntley registers under an assumed name. They assume that a guest (Terry-Thomas) is the intended victim and turn the inn into a mad house.

Sim, Cole, and Thomas are hilarious, each playing his patented British eccentric. Adams is very pretty. Good support from Angers and Huntley. Also good are the inn keepers (Arthur Brough and Dora Bryan), the associate (John Chandos), Colin Gordon as the fiancé, and the boozy music trio (Marie Burke, Lucy Griffiths, and Vivien Wood).

Interesting to see Brough (Mr. Granger on ARE YOU BEING SERVED?) years before his television stardom.

THE GREEN MAN is one of the funniest black comedies ever made, but it has been hidden from most movie fans because it came in a period of many films from Britain of equal value and with higher star quality (i.e., Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers as the star, rather than Alistair Sim, their equal in British cinema). Sim influence Guiness (who copied him in appearance in THE LADYKILLERS) and he appeared to better effect in film with Sellers (THE MILLIONAIRESS), but he never accepted knighthood or got the Oscar like Guiness did (nor did he get nominated for an Oscar like Sellers did on several occasions). So he gets an unfair short shrift, although there is considerable evidence that he was their total equal as an actor...certainly as a comic actor.

Sim is a professional assassin, who blows up his targets. However, he insists on agreeing to destroy the men he is hired to kill only if they happen to be rather pompous as well as politically objectionable. At the start of the film one sees him blow up a Latin American dictator with a bomb in a soccer ball. He also blows up a self-important millionaire with an exploding hammer (used to call a stockholders meeting to order). His target in the film is a rising, self-satisfied politician...and who can better personify smug self-satisfaction in British comedy than Raymond Huntley. Sim plans to hoist Huntley with his own petard - a recording of his normal, boring speech, set to blow up at a particular moment of dullness. Huntley is going to a seaside resort for the weekend, and Sim plans to go after him.

Unfortunately for the normally careful Sim, a cleaning lady stumbles on his plot, and he has to tie her up. But she manages to get the attention of vacuum cleaner salesman George Cole, who slowly realizes that the "helpful" Sim is not so helpful. Sim manages to get to the hotel, but Cole soon follows him.

Huntley is there, but his weekend is not so clean - he has a young lady there for some non-political activity. Also at the hotel (which is called "The Green Man") is Terry-Thomas, also there for the weekend, and hoping to become lucky. There is also the normal set of normal eccentrics that people British farces like this.

So the last half of the film is following the following points: Will Sim manage to avoid Cole, and get at Huntley? Will Cole find Sim, and save Huntley, without getting Terry-Thomas sufficiently angry at him for spoiling all of his attempts at picking up ladies? And will Huntley have his improper weekend, and enjoy hearing his own speech? Sim's bomb plot against Huntley hits one snag which for sheer unexpected effrontery is hard to top - he sets it in motion, only to find he has not counted on an active critic. It is only a ten second bit in the film, but it is a hoot!

Mr Sim is ideally cast as a seemingly mild but actually ruthless assassin. His perfect comic timing, expressive features and ability to switch on a sense of genuine menace are well used in this sprightly farce. George Cole is admirable as the well meaning young hero while Jill Adams is a radiantly beautiful and desirable heroine. As indisputably English as Wimbledon but much more fun!