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IN A MONASTERY GARDEN
"It's all freshly sliced and the butter's wiped on!"

There are few less edifying spectacles in cinema than actors more used to positioning Howitzers and tossing submarines from hand to hand, or even reciting Shakespeare, trying to get laughs. Some can do it (Donald 'Oddball' Sutherland, Paul 'Butch' Newman), some think they can do it (Gene 'Loose Cannons' Hackman and Nicolas 'Raising Arizona' Cage) and some just plain can 't (Arnold 'Kindergarten Cop' Schwarzenfuhrer). Sadly those in the latter two categories never really learn and, as an overly descriptive church notice we once saw put it, like a dog returning to its own vomit they sin again. Directors and producers, largely intelligent people, know this and have done for several thousand years which is why the comedy star vehicle is as old as any other genre in film. Not just comedy films though, since that would mean Chaplin, Keaton, Sellers and the rest. No, no, what we are casting our gaze upon here are those films concocted to showcase the talents of the popular comedy star of the day, such as those dealt with in our previous exhaustive and encyclopaedic section C is for CRAZY GANG. But there 's so, so much more. Indeed second only to comedians' inexplicable drive to make records comes their endless enthusiasm for transferring their talents to the silver screen.

On the face of it this all seems perfectly understandable. A comedian who has spent years playing every part of the country with their act is surely a shoo-in for success in film. The audience already knows them, loves them, laughs at them and, which is more important, pays good money to see them. How could such a project fail? That's the terrible logic anyway and almost every major comedian of their generation has fallen for it, from the aforementioned Crazy Gang to Sid Field, Robb Wilton, Arthur Askey, Max Miller, Frankie Howerd, The Goons, Arthur Haynes and Charlie Chester, Jimmy Edwards, Charlie Drake, Tommy Trinder, Bob Monkhouse, Tony Hancock and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Surely the most successful exponent of this has to be George 'Order of Lenin ' Formby whose outings in such vehicles as COME ON GEORGE!, TURNED OUT NICE AGAIN and GET CRACKING have earned him a place in the history books as an actual film star as opposed to the comedian he already was. Additionally, with George's first film credited to him in 1914 he might reasonably claim to be the originator of the entire genre. Also of note are the films of Sid Field, particularly the brilliant LONDON TOWN where he got to recreate his legendary stage act with the unbelievably arch Jerry Desmond ("I used to work on the trains, you know!") and dress up in a Pearly King outfit alongside the battleship-like Tessie O'Shea. And all in glorious Technicolor, too (or something adjacent to it achieved with sweet wrappers and cow gum most likely).

Another exemplar of the classic approach of concocting a story into which a stage performance could be shoehorned comes with Max Miller. The Cheeky Chappie himself made his debut with a smallish part in THE GOOD COMPANIONS and can at least share that distinction with John Gielgud, whose first film this also was. Max shared the bill with several others in subsequent films until 1938 when his fame reached its apex and he topped the bill not only in theatres all over the country but in the fleapits as well, starting with THANK EVANS and then in EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, the brilliantly titled HOOTS MON!, THE GOOD OLD DAYS and ASKING FOR TROUBLE. At some point these always required that Max put on his plus-fours and flowery suit, climb on a stage and ask if the audience wanted to hear Roses of Picardy or In A Monastery Garden as per his act. Truthfully these didn't often work, as the fact remains that stage acts work on the stage and not really on film where the atmosphere that carries an act along just doesn't translate. In a theatre the audience is part of the action but in a picture hall we're only ever spectators.

Anyway, glib analysis of contemporary art forms aside, other comedians made a considerable number of films between them in the same pattern as Miller. Robb 'the day war broke out' Wilton clocked sixteen films between THE SECRET OF THE LOCH in 1914 and THE LOVE MATCH in 1955, Arthur Askey ran up a bill for seventeen including such seminal works as Private Godfrey's THE GHOST TRAIN and the toppermost MAKE MINE A MILLION where he camps out on top of the BBC. Less successful entries include Frankie Howerd's early effort THE RUNAWAY BUS (the director and writer of which, Val Guest, we learn is amazingly still alive and well and living in LA: possibly in a castle with Isabella Rossellini) which was so cash strapped it substituted fog for scenery. Howerd of course graduated to such classics as THE LADYKILLERS and UP POMPEII! and Tommy Trinder did likewise starting with SAVE A LITTLE SUNSHINE and ALMOST A HONEYMOON but moving on to the brilliant THE FORMEAN WENT TO FRANCE with Gordon Jackson before rounding off his film career with BARRY MACKENZIE HOLDS HIS OWN.

Bigger stars of course get films of their own but also with predictably mixed results. The Goons must have thought they were on a sure thing when they slapped together DOWN AMONG THE Z MEN but the results were on the whole, well, rubbish. Moving on a bit and Tony Hancock of course got a rather better run at it and produced the sublime THE REBEL and the not-quite-so-good but still above par THE PUNCH AND JUDY MAN. Charlie Drake also got a few throws but didn't do nearly so well only managing the poor THE CRACKSMAN and the even poorer SANDS OF THE DESERT then PETTICOAT PIRATES before being relegated to support status again. Lord Bob of Monkhouse, typically, scored above par when he hit the ground running with CARRY ON SERGEANT then got his own spot with even a short series taking in DENTIST ON THE JOB and DENTIST IN THE CHAIR. And we like them a lot.

Lastly the real underachievers of the bunch are Pete and Dud whose joint film outings were truly lamentable. BEDAZZLED is massively overrated, although not bad for what it is (that being a bit of a smart arsed light comedy with a hugely annoying soundtrack) and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES is just appalling and rather fitting that it be the last one mentioned here since it perfectly illustrates the problem. No plot to speak of and nothing more than excuse to crank in famous routines well out of context. Pete and Dud did appear in some very good films of course, as did many of the above funsters but crucially these were as part of an ensemble. The lesson seems to be that a comedian in a film is handy for dressing and the odd funny face, but unless they're of the titanic stature of a Field, Hancock, Monkhouse or, and let's not be half hearted, a Formby then the comedy star vehicle isn't going to work. No more than their bloody awful records.

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