Rum, stand-alone wartime comedy about a bunch of convalescents – colonel John Le Mesurier, one-handed Frenchman Gregoire ‘Crooks in Cloisters’ Aslan, romantic lead Bill Travers and deranged explosives expert Spike Milligan – so annoyed by the noise from a German supergun they set out to sabotage it. Milligan’s top shellshocked value (“What a wonderful noise!”) the scenes of comic destruction are ably done, Eric Sykes has a nice cameo as a distinctly Hitlerian band conductor caught in a fishing net, and Maurice Denham, Thorley Walters, William Mervyn and Millicent Martin fluff out a well-appointed cast. Millington met his second long-suffering, spendthrift wife Paddy Ridgway on set for this, enlisting George ‘Certainly never took drugs in front of *me*’ Martin as best man for the ceremony, and donning a comedy silent film villain moustache during the ceremony. Brian Redhead writes: “Thought you might like to know that!”
