The Plank (1967 film)

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The Plank
"The Plank" (1967).jpg
Directed by Eric Sykes
Written byEric Sykes
Produced by Jon Penington
StarringEric Sykes
Tommy Cooper
Jimmy Edwards
CinematographyArthur Wooster
Edited byJohn Pomeroy
Music by Brian Fahey
Distributed by Rank Film Distributors (UK)
Release date
  • 1967 (1967)
Running time
51 or 44 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Plank is a 1967 British slapstick comedy film directed and written by Eric Sykes, and starring Sykes, Tommy Cooper and Jimmy Edwards, and featuring many of the top British comedians and comic actors of the time. [1] It was produced by Jon Penington for Associated London Films.

Contents

It follows the misadventures of two builders who require a floorboard. The story was based on the 1964 episode "Sykes and a Plank" of Eric Sykes' BBC comedy series Sykes and a... . Although not strictly a silent film, it has little dialogue; instead, the film is punctuated by grunts, other vocal noises and sound effects.

Plot

After one of the characters uses the last floorboard for heating, the two hapless carpenters have to buy a replacement. They return to the house with the plank on top of a Morris Eight Series E, but the journey is fraught with unexpected difficulties.

The film is a series of "plank jokes" elaborating on the "man with a plank" slapstick routine seen in vaudeville and silent films, and adding new ones. For instance, at one point the plank is tied to the top of the car and projects backward into the open back of a large van. A man (played by Roy Castle) enters the back of the van and sits down. The van drives away, leaving him suspended in mid-air sitting on the end of the plank.

Cast

Production

Two variants exist, running for about 51 and 44 minutes respectively. The film was reissued in 1974, [2] with some scenes cut down or extended, and some put in a different order, with the music reapplied to suit; some voices were clarified.

Although a single plank was depicted throughout the film, two planks were actually used for filming: a thin plank for scenes where actors carry the plank, and a thicker plank for scenes where it is being transported on the Morris Eight and for scenes where a thicker stronger plank was required. In December 2011, one of these planks from the film was sold at auction for £1,050. [3] [4] [5]

Dermot Kelly is often listed as "Concertina Man" [2] or "Affluent Concertina Man", [6] instead of "Milkman". Johnny Speight is often listed as "Chauffeur", [2] "Concertina Man's Chauffeur" [7] or "Concertina Man's Father", [6] instead of "Pipe Smoker in Bus Queue".

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Eric Sykes describes this film, in which he deliberately attempts to create an internationally accessible form of comedy by keeping dialogue to a bare minimum and concentrating on visual effects, as "an exposition of the mechanical gag". But the mechanical gag as he employs it here (the plank carried on a workman's shoulder which bangs the head of an adjacent bystander, the absent-minded house-painter who paints both the doorway and the man standing in it) is a form already brilliantly exposed and explored in the early silent comedies for which Sykes has such an obvious affection. And neither the use of Technicolor nor the occasional new gimmick – the liturgical incantation of the credit titles, for instance – is enough to conceal either the poverty or the superfluousness of the improvised dialogue, or more seriously, to disguise the fact that Sykes has stretched fifteen minutes of slapstick material into a fifty-four minute film. The result is something genial and leisurely – like Laurel and Hardy in waltz time – in which familiar TV comedians move through familiar routines, generating constant goodwill but only intermittent laughter." [8]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This joyously inventive 'silent' comedy from writer/director Eric Sykes is about the misadventures of two builders delivering wood to a house. Sykes himself is "Smaller workman" to Tommy Cooper's "Larger workman", and, although not all the jokes are completely fresh, the fun is in the effective sound effects, and the spotting of comedy icons such as Jimmy Edwards, Jimmy Tarbuck and Roy Castle in unfamiliar poses. Music hall on the hoof." [9]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "The Plank". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 Gifford, Denis, ed. (2016). British Film Catalogue: Two Volume Set - The Fiction Film/The Non-Fiction Film. Routledge. pp. 972–. ISBN   978-1-317-74062-9.
  3. ↑ Wilkin, Chris (1 December 2011). "Wooden film star goes under the hammer in Colchester". Daily Gazette. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  4. ↑ "Plank of wood goes under hammer ... for £1,050". Clacton Gazette. 5 December 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  5. ↑ "Plank of wood that became a film star is sold for £1k". Daily Gazette. 8 December 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  6. 1 2 Peter Cowie; Derek Elley (1977). World Filmography: 1967. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 202–. ISBN   978-0-498-01565-6.
  7. ↑ "Speight, Johnny (1920-1998)" . Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  8. ↑ "The Plank". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 34 (396): 126. 1 January 1967 – via ProQuest.
  9. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 724. ISBN   9780992936440.
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