''Penny Points to Paradise'' is a 1951 comedy feature film. The film was the feature film debut of the stars of ''

The Goon Show ''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 19 ...

'',

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his ...

Harry Secombe Sir Harold Donald Secombe (8 September 1921 – 11 April 2001) was a Welsh comedian, actor, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'' (1951–1960), playing many characters, m ...

and

Peter Sellers Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...

. The film was directed by Tony Young, who later produced ''

The Telegoons ''The Telegoons'' is a comedy puppet show, adapted from the highly successful BBC radio comedy show of the 1950s, ''The Goon Show'' produced for BBC television and first shown during 1963 and 1964. Two series of 13 episodes were made. The series w ...

'' for BBC Television.

Plot

Secombe plays the part of Harry Flakers, a man who has a big win on the football pools. He and his friend Spike Donnelly (Milligan) decide to go to the same shabby seaside boarding house that they have always patronised for their summer holiday, but this year all the other guests (including two young women out to marry money, a dodgy investment advisor and a master forger and assistant) are intent on taking the fortune off them in one way or another. Ultimately the forgers manage to substitute fake five-pound notes for the real ones that Flakers keeps in his suitcase, but before they can abscond with the money one of the girls is given cash by Flakers to buy some cigarettes, and accused of passing false currency when the forgery is detected. A grand chase follows with half the characters pursuing the other half through a waxwork museum in which the true crooks have taken refuge. Justice is served when the chief forger boasts of his crime in front of what he thinks are two waxwork policemen, but who turn out to be real members of the force. In the final scenes Harry and Spike marry the two women. There are sequences featuring a night out at the theatre where a stage hypnotist mesmerises Flakers and the girl Christine into performing an operatic duet, he singing soprano and she baritone, and a scene in which Harry Secombe wordlessly mimes out an entire heart operation being carried out by a nervous surgeon.

Cast

as Harry Flakers *

Alfred Marks Alfred Edward Marks OBE (born Alfred Edward Touchinsky; 28 January 19211 July 1996) was a British actor and comedian. In his 60-year career, he played dramatic and comedy roles in numerous television programmes, stage shows and films. His self- ...

as Edward Haynes *

as The Major / Arnold Fringe * Paddie O'Neil as Christine Russell *

as Spike Donnelly *

Bill Kerr William Henry Kerr (10 June 1922 – 28 August 2014) was a British and Australian actor, comedian, and vaudevillian. Born in South Africa, he started his career as a child actor in Australia, before emigrating to Britain after the Second Wor ...

as Digger Graves *

Freddie Frinton Freddie Frinton (born Frederick Bittiner Coo;According to the NDR, and the General Record Office (Births, Marriages, Deaths) Frinton's birth name was Coo.General Register Office: Register of Births – Mar 1909 7a _7 Grimsby – Frederick Bi ...

as Drunk * Vicki Page as Sheila Gilroy * Joe Linnane as Policeman *

Sam Kydd Samuel John Kydd (15 February 1915 – 26 March 1982) was a British-Irish actor. His best-known roles were in two major British television series of the 1960s, as the smuggler Orlando O'Connor in '' Crane'' and its sequel ''Orlando''. He als ...

as Porter / Taxi Driver / Newsvendor

Revival

According to Peter Sellers "a terrifyingly bad film", the film was not profitable on initial release and was eventually re-issued for distribution abroad in 1960 as a cut-down 55-minute version under the title "Penny Points". Many sections were removed, and some additional unrelated material was incorporated from a short comedy entitled "

Let's Go Crazy "Let's Go Crazy" is a 1984 song by Prince and The Revolution, from the album '' Purple Rain''. It was the opening track on both the album and the film '' Purple Rain''. "Let's Go Crazy" was one of Prince's most popular songs, and was a staple f ...

" which had also featured Sellers. A print of this re-issue survived in the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia. A

16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...

copy of "Penny Points to Paradise" was discovered in 2006 in the archives of Adelphi Films, and in 2007 a 64-minute partial restoration was screened at

BFI Southbank BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the UK, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Institute. His ...

. Funding from an American Peter Sellers fan made it possible to attempt a full restoration, using the 16mm print as a reference copy and working from the various incomplete 35 mm archive sources. The resulting 72-minute version was screened by the BFI in July 2009, with a later DVD release. Vic Pratt, BFI curator, described it as "a cheap and cheerful film that was filmed in just three weeks".Mark Brow
"Forgotten film of Goons restored by BFI"
''The Guardian'', 26 July 2009

References

External links

* * * *
The Goons films
at The Goon Show website

at The Telegoons website {{Goons 1951 films 1951 comedy films British comedy films British black-and-white films 1950s English-language films 1950s British films