''Postman's Knock'' is a 1962 British

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Robert Lynn starring

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 ...

, Barbara Shelley, John Wood and

Warren Mitchell Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was a British actor. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner. In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes ''Educatin ...

. The screenplay concerns a country

postman A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier (in American English), sometimes colloquially known as a postie (in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom), is an employee of a post ...

who is transferred to London, where he manages to foil a major robbery. According to MGM the film made a loss of $31,000..

Plot

Harold Petts is a conscientious village postman who receives a promotion that takes him to London to be trained at London's busiest

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

. However, after his first day in the big city, he is soon in trouble. In the main sorting office, he succeeds in beating the new mail sorting machine at pigeonholing letters for delivery (the machine blows up in the process). As a result, he is placed safely out of the way in the parcels department, but sorts parcels at such speed that he puts everyone else in the department out of work. This leads him to a meeting with the staff psychiatrist, and then to Jean, an ambitious art student, and the pair find themselves the main suspects in a mail theft ring, with the police and post office officials hot on their heels.

Cast

- Harold Petts * Barbara Shelley - Jean * John Wood - P.C. Woods * Archie Duncan - Inspector *

- Rupert *

Lance Percival John Lancelot Blades Percival (26 July 1933 – 6 January 2015), known as Lance Percival, was an English actor, comedian and singer, best known for his appearances in satirical comedy television shows of the early 1960s and his ability to impr ...

- Joe * Arthur Mullard - Sam * John Bennett - Pete *

Ronald Adam General Sir Ronald Forbes Adam, 2nd Baronet, (30 October 1885 – 26 December 1982) was a senior British Army officer. He had an important influence on the conduct of the British Army during the Second World War as a result of his long tenure ...

- Mr. Fordyce * Miles Malleson - Psychiatrist * Wilfrid Lawson - Postman * Mario Fabrizi - Villager *

Bob Todd Brian Todd (15 December 1921 – 21 October 1992), known professionally as Bob Todd, was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years, he lived in ...

- District Superintendent

Critical reception

''Britmovie'' noted "several promising satirical opportunities are sadly lost beneath a welter of frenetic slapstick"; while David McGillivray described the film in the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves ...

'' as "one of two comedies (the other is '' Invasion Quartet'') created for Spike Milligan by John Briley and Jack Trevor Story, talented writers not noted for their eccentric humour (Briley went on to script ''

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

'' and ''

Cry Freedom ''Cry Freedom'' is a 1987 epic apartheid drama film directed and produced by Richard Attenborough, set in late-1970s apartheid-era South Africa. The screenplay was written by John Briley based on a pair of books by journalist Donald Woods. ...

''). Consequently the brilliant

Goon Goon may refer to: Slang * Humans: ** People noted for brutality, or otherwise as targets of contempt: *** A guard in a prisoner of war camp (British World War II usage) *** An enforcer (ice hockey) *** A hired thug, in a goon squad ** Alterna ...

flounders in the conventional, happy-go-lucky tale of a village postman who is transferred to London."

References

External links

* * * {{tcmdb title, id=86993 1962 films 1962 comedy films 1960s English-language films Films directed by Robert Lynn British comedy films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Films scored by Ron Goodwin British black-and-white films Films set in London Films with screenplays by John Briley Films about postal systems Films shot at MGM-British Studios 1960s British films