''Gasbags'' is a 1941
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
directed by
Walter Forde
Walter Forde (born Thomas Seymour Woolford, 21 April 1898 – 7 January 1984) was a British actor, screenwriter and director. Born in Lambeth, south London in 1898, he directed over fifty films between 1919 from the silent era through to 1 ...
and
Marcel Varnel
Marcel Varnel (16 October 1892 – 13 July 1947) was French film director, notably however for his career in the United States and England as a director of plays and films
Biography
He was born Marcel Hyacinthe le Bozec in Paris, France.
Va ...
and starring
The Crazy Gang as well as
Moore Marriott
George Thomas Moore Marriott (14 September 1885 – 11 December 1949) was an English character actor best remembered for the series of films he made with Will Hay. His first appearance with Hay was in the film '' Dandy Dick'' (1935), but he wa ...
. The film was a morale-booster in the early part of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
[
]
Production
It was shot at the Lime Grove Studios in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. The film's sets were designed by the art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
Alex Vetchinsky
Alex Vetchinsky ( Alec Hyman Vetchinsky; 9 November 1904 - 4 March 1980) was a BAFTA nominated British film art director and production designer. He worked on more than a hundred productions during a career that lasted between 1928 and 1974. Vetc ...
. It was the fourth and final film starring the comedians at Gainsborough Pictures
Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The com ...
. Flanagan and Allen
Flanagan and Allen were a British singing and comedy double act most active during the 1930s and 1940s. Its members were Bud Flanagan (1896 – 1968, born Chaim Weintrop) and Chesney Allen (1894–1982). They were first paired in a Florrie Ford ...
subsequently moved to British National
A British national, or United Kingdom national, is a person who possesses a type of British nationality. This includes anyone who is a:
* British citizen
* British Overseas Territories citizen
* British Overseas citizen
* British subject (as defi ...
where they made a further four films over the next few years.
Plot summary
The Crazy Gang's mobile fish and chip
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of liv ...
shop is tethered to a barrage balloon which lifts the shop into the air and the gang is carried to Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. They are captured but break out of prison, impersonate Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and return to England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in a stolen secret weapon.
Cast
*Bud Flanagan
Bud Flanagan, (born Chaim Reuben Weintrop, 14 October 1896 – 20 October 1968) was a British music hall and vaudeville entertainer and comedian, and later a television and film actor. He was best known as a double act with Chesney Allen. Fla ...
as Bud
* Chesney Allen as Ches
* Jimmy Nervo as Cecil
* Teddy Knox as Knoxy
* Charlie Naughton as Charlie
*Jimmy Gold
Jimmy McGonigal (21 April 1886 – 7 October 1967), known professionally as Jimmy Gold, was a Scottish comedian and part of the music hall act of Naughton and Gold. Later they became part of The Crazy Gang.
Gold was born in Glasgow. His paren ...
as Goldy
*Moore Marriott
George Thomas Moore Marriott (14 September 1885 – 11 December 1949) was an English character actor best remembered for the series of films he made with Will Hay. His first appearance with Hay was in the film '' Dandy Dick'' (1935), but he wa ...
as Jerry Jenkins
*Wally Patch
Walter Sydney Vinnicombe (26 September 1888 – 27 October 1970) was an English actor and comedian. He worked in film, television and theatre.
Biography
Vinnicombe was born in Willesden, Middlesex and began working on the music hall stages in ...
as Sergeant-Major
*Peter Gawthorne
Peter Gawthorne (1 September 1884 – 17 March 1962) was an Anglo-Irish actor, probably best known for his roles in the films of Will Hay and other popular British comedians of the 1930s and 1940s. Gawthorne was one of Britain's most called-upo ...
as Commanding Officer
*Frederick Valk
Frederick Valk (10 June 1895 – 23 July 1956) was a German-born Jewish stage and screen actor of Czech Jewish descent who fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, and subsequently became a naturalised British cit ...
as Sturmfuehrer
*Eric Clavering
Eric Clavering (1901–1989) was a British-born actor who spent much of his career in Canada. He played supporting roles in a number of British films during the Second World War. He later moved to Canada, and had a recurring role on the Canadian ...
as Scharffuehrer
*Anthony Eustrel
Anthony Eustrel (12 October 1902 – 2 July 1979) was an English actor.
Eustrel made guest appearances on television programs such as ''Perry Mason'', ''Maverick'', ''Peter Gunn'', ''77 Sunset Strip'', ''My Favorite Martian'', '' Hogan's Heroes' ...
as Gestapo Officer
*Carl Jaffe
Carl Jaffe (21 March 1902 – 12 April 1974) was a German actor. Jaffe trained on the stage in his native Hamburg, Kassel and Wiesbaden before moving to Berlin, where his career began to develop.
In 1933 Jaffe changed his stage name to Fra ...
as Gestapo Chief
*Manning Whiley
Manning Hedges Whiley (23 January 191529 January 1975) was a British actor.
Partial filmography
* ''Trunk Crime'' (1939) - Bentley
* '' The Four Just Men'' (1939) - (uncredited)
* '' Pack Up Your Troubles'' (1940) - Muller
* '' Contraband'' (19 ...
as Colonel
*Torin Thatcher
Torin Herbert Erskine Thatcher (15 January 1905 – 4 March 1981) was a British actor who was noted for his flashy portrayals of screen villains.
Personal life
Thatcher was born in Bombay, British India, to British parents, Torin James Blair T ...
as SS Man
* George Merritt as German General
*Irene Handl
Irene Handl (27 December 1901 – 29 November 1987) was a British author and character actress who appeared in more than 100 British films.
Life
Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the younger of two daughters of an Austria-born father ...
as Burgomaster's wife
* Leonard Sharp as Chip Shop customer
* Mavis Villiers
Mavis Villiers (born Mavis Clare Cooney; 10 December 190923 February 1976) was an Australian-born British actress of stage, film and television. Her parents were John Cooney and Clara Smythe. Her brother, Cecil Cooney, was a camera operator an ...
as Woman
* Henry Longhurst
Henry Carpenter Longhurst (18 March 1909 – 21 July 1978) was a British golf writer and commentator. For 45 years, he was golfing correspondent of the '' Sunday Times''. During World War II, Longhurst was also a member of parliament (MP) for Ac ...
as Woodcutter
*Theodore Zichy
Count Theodore Béla Rudolf Zichy de Zich et Vásonkeő ( hu, Zichi és Vásonkeői gróf Zichy Tivadar Béla Rudolf; 13 June 1908 – 30 December 1987) was a British actor, photographer, film director, producer and playboy of Hungarian descent.
...
as 2nd in Command
Critical reception
''TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'' called it "An exhilarating comedy"; while the ''Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' called it "the best film ever made by the Crazy Gang...Director Marcel Varnel has just the right surreal touch to make it work and leave audiences laughing."
Soundtrack
*Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen - "Yesterday's Dreams" (Written by Michael Carr and Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
)
References
Bibliography
* Mayer, Geoff. ''Guide to British Cinema''. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
External links
*
1941 films
1940s adventure comedy films
British adventure comedy films
British World War II propaganda films
1940s English-language films
British black-and-white films
Films set in London
Films set in Germany
Films set in Salzburg
Films about Nazi Germany
Films directed by Walter Forde
Films directed by Marcel Varnel
Films with screenplays by Marriott Edgar
Gainsborough Pictures films
Films shot at Lime Grove Studios
1941 comedy films
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