ONE GOOD TURN
UK, 1954, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Norman Wisdom, Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair, Thora Hird.
Directed by John Paddy Carstairs.
One Good Turn is one of the best of the Norman Wisdom vehicles of the mid '50s. Wisdom had a star period - many comedies geared for family audiences. A popular vaudeville star, he made the transition to films - although His popularity did not last on film during the '60s. (He made a very good acting appearance in the 1969 The Night They Raided Minsky's.)
Wisdom is in the Charlie Chaplin, little man tradition. He is the orphan, the domestic tramp, with his ill-fitting clothes (cap, tie and coat). He is awkward, makes mistakes but has a heart of gold. He never wins the girl - but they all find him kind and understanding. This film capitalises on his image.
Joan Rice and zither girl Shirley Abicair (who has a chance to sing 'Botany Bay' with her zither) are the romantic leads. There is good comic support from Thora Hird as a warm-hearted cook.
The film had social relevance at the time - an orphanage and big business and wealth trying to take over the grounds for the building of a factory. Needless to say, they don't win. The film also pokes fun at the rich and the snobs - especially in a comic sequence in a first-class railway carriage. There are the conventional characters - Norman as the handyman who has never left the orphanage along with the various orphans. There is Matron - big, at times a villain, at times warm-hearted. There is the cook and the assistant along with the romantic hero (son of Mr. Beckley the businessman) and the schoolteacher heroine.
The film is really an almost non-stop visual gag and routine ensemble: Norman's getting up and the mess he makes making tea in the morning, the crossing of the street with the orphans and holding up the cars, an extraordinary telephone sequence where he gets mixed up with people and phones, a crying bout while peeling onions, going to the seaside with the orphans, a satire on rich snobs in the Brighton train, his losing his trousers and ending up winning a walking race to Brighton, his working as a billboard-carrier finishing up conducting, an orchestra, a chase throughout the stage area to the 'William Tell Overture', waiting at a cinema and mistaking the manager for someone who wanted to peek on the films, his being hypnotised and going several rounds in a fair boxing bout, buying a model car and being chased along country roads by a police man. Most of these work fairly well. Inserted are some sentimental songs. An American comparison of the time would be Jerry Lewis - Norman Wisdom is far less raucous and knockabout.
