Very Important Person | |
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![]() Original British cinema poster | |
Directed by | Ken Annakin |
Written by | Jack Davies Henry Blyth |
Produced by | Leslie Parkyn Julian Wintle |
Starring | James Robertson Justice Stanley Baxter Leslie Phillips |
Cinematography | Ernest Steward |
Edited by | Ralph Sheldon |
Music by | Reg Owen |
Production company | |
Distributed by | The Rank Organisation (UK) Union Film Distributors (US) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 min. |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Very Important Person (U.S. title: A Coming Out Party [1] ) is a 1961 British comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and written by Jack Davies and Henry Blyth. [2] The cast includes several well-known British comedy and character actors, including James Robertson Justice, Stanley Baxter in a dual role as a dour Scottish prisoner and a German prisoner-of-war camp officer, Eric Sykes, John Le Mesurier, Leslie Phillips and Richard Wattis.
Sir Ernest Pease, a brilliant but acerbic scientist, is the subject of a television programme based on This Is Your Life during which he is re-united with past acquaintances. He does not remember the senior British Army officer at all! A flashback ensues.
In 1942, Pease is in charge of very important aircraft research during the Second World War. He needs to take a trip on a bomber to gain first-hand knowledge of the environment under which his special equipment is to be used. However, no one must know who he is. He goes as Lieutenant Farrow, a Royal Navy public relations officer. The bomber is hit over Germany and, ignoring a crewman's warning, Pease is sucked out through a hole in the side of the aeroplane, but parachutes safely to the ground.
He is captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp mostly occupied by Royal Air Force officers. His excellent command of German causes him to be suspected of being a spy, but when his real identity becomes known to Group Captain Travers, the senior British officer, he informs the men in his hut of his importance and that his escape is a top priority. Among Pease's roommates are Jimmy Cooper, "Jock" Everett, and "Bonzo" Baines.
Pease is offered an opportunity to escape through a tunnel with two other men. However, he expects the pair to be easily recaptured (which does in fact occur). He instead plans to go into hiding after a fake escape attempt. He presumes the Germans will search for him for two weeks then presume he has got away, at which point they will step down the search and he can more safely escape.
When the Germans eventually assume he has succeeded in getting away and lose interest, he will walk out of the camp, disguised as one of three visiting Swiss Red Cross observers, along with Cooper and Baines (which has echoes of a real Second World War escape from Spangenberg by RAF officers Dominic Bruce, the "Medium Sized Man" of Colditz fame; Pete Tunstall; and "Useless" Eustace Newborn, who escaped dressed as Swiss Red Cross doctors[ citation needed ]). Crucial to the plan is that Everett looks like the camp Lager (compound) officer, Major Stampfel (also played by Baxter, even though he describes him as "hideously ugly"). He must impersonate Stampfel, as he will be escorting the delegation. The escape committee, headed by Wing Commander Piggott, are very dissatisfied with Pease's plan, but Pease is determined to see it through. The plan nearly comes unstuck at the last moment, when another prisoner, "Grassy" Green, is revealed as an astute undercover Luftwaffe intelligence officer. He takes them at gunpoint, but mistakes Everett for Stampfel and is "dealt with". Pease, Cooper and Baines walk out of the camp and eventually make their way back home.
Returning to the television programme, Pease is reunited with Baines, now a leading designer of ladies' foundation garments; Cooper, a missionary in India; Everett, a West London undertaker; and Stampfel, who has become a popular entertainment manager at a British holiday camp.
The escape plan, to walk out of the camp dressed as Red Cross observers, was used in real life. It was briefly mentioned in Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape.[ citation needed ]
There were in fact two such 'Swiss Commission' escapes from German POW camps holding RAF prisoners – Oflag IXA/H, Spangenberg, in 1941, and Oflag VIB, Warburg, in 1942. The escape in Very Important Person is based on the latter, which was an Army–RAF joint effort, and not the one mentioned by Paul Brickhill. Both escapes are described by Charles Rollings in his books Wire and Walls and Wire and Worse.[ citation needed ]
The film's screenplay was later made into a novelisation with the same title by John Foley, which has erroneously caused John Foley to sometimes be credited as author of the novel upon which the film is based. However, it was the other way around: his novel is based on the film. [3] [4]
Ken Annakin had just made Swiss Family Robinson and was trying to make other films as a follow-up. Earl St John had been brought the script by David Tomlinson, who John Davis of Rank hated. However St John felt the script was very commercial made the film through a subsidiary at Beaconfield. Annakin agreed to work on the script with Jack Davies and direct. [5]
The film had its world premiere on 20 April 1961 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End and went on general release in late May on Rank's second string National circuit.[ citation needed ]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The comedy doesn't quite dare to satirise the sacrosanct schoolboy heroics of the typical British P.O.W. film. It settles instead for a few good-natured laughs at the time-wasting round that is the dismal lot of the P.O.W.; including the inevitable camp concert and the frantic tunnelling activities. A cod "This Is Your Life" programme, which precedes the flashback story and casts Godfrey Winn as a nervous chairman with James Robertson Justice (Pease) as the bad-tempered victim, is funny enough to survive the lukewarm treatment. But the bright idea of teaming Justice and Stanley Baxter (playing the dual roles of Stampfel and Everett) is amply rewarded. The latter's talent for mimicry is obviously operating at half-pressure, but it's still engaged to useful effect as a foil for Robertson's bombastic superiority. Between them, they lift the film out of the rut of standard British screen foolery." [6]
The New York Times described the film as "trifling, even as modest British comedies go," and "burdened, rather than helped, by the presence of James Robertson Justice in a ponderous role," though Leslie Phillips and Stanley Baxter were found to be "particularly droll." [1]
The Radio Times noted a "winning comedy" with "witty script", "polished playing" - "Stanley Baxter gives one of his best film performances" - and "deft comic support from Leslie Phillips, Eric Sykes and the deliciously deadpan Richard Wattis." [7]
Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, which include collaboration on some scripts for The Goon Show. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Miranda is a 1948 black and white British comedy film, directed by Ken Annakin and written by Peter Blackmore, who also wrote the play of the same name from which the film was adapted. The film stars Glynis Johns, Googie Withers, Griffith Jones, Margaret Rutherford, John McCallum and David Tomlinson. Denis Waldock provided additional dialogue. Music for the film was played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Muir Mathieson. The sound director was B. C. Sewell.
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes is a 1965 British epic period comedy film that satirises the early years of aviation. Directed and co-written by Ken Annakin, the film stars an international ensemble cast, including Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Robert Morley, Terry-Thomas, James Fox, Red Skelton, Benny Hill, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Gert Fröbe and Alberto Sordi.
The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men is a 1952 action-adventure film produced by RKO-Walt Disney British Productions, based on the Robin Hood legend, made in Technicolor and filmed in Buckinghamshire, England. It was written by Lawrence Edward Watkin and directed by Ken Annakin. It is the second of Disney's complete live-action films, after Treasure Island (1950), and the first of four films Annakin directed for Disney.
Stanley Livingstone Baxter is a Scottish actor, comedian, impressionist and author. Baxter began his career as a child actor on BBC Scotland and later became known for his British television comedy shows The Stanley Baxter Show, The Stanley Baxter Picture Show, The Stanley Baxter Series and Mr Majeika.
The Colditz Story is a 1955 British prisoner of war film starring John Mills and Eric Portman and directed by Guy Hamilton. It is based on the 1952 memoir written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, in Germany during the Second World War and who was the Escape Officer for British POWs within the castle.
Kenneth Cooper Annakin, OBE was an English film director.
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Monte Carlo or Bust! is a 1969 epic comedy film, also known by its American title, Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies. A co-production of the United Kingdom, France and Italy, the story is based on the Monte Carlo Rally – first raced in 1911 – and the film, set in the 1920s, recalls this general era. A lavish all-star film, it is the story of an epic car rally across Europe that involves a lot of eccentric characters from all over the world who will stop at nothing to win.
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Richard Cameron Wattis was an English actor, co-starring in many popular British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s.
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