VERY IMPORTANT PERSON

UK, 1961, 98 minutes, Black and white.
James Robertson Justice, Stanley Baxter, Leslie Phillips, Eric Sykes, Richard Wattis, Colin Gordon.
Directed by Ken Annakin.

Very Important Person is an entertaining prisoner of war comedy. It came, in the early '60s, at the end of many '40s and '50s tributes to war heroism.

The film is a vehicle for the talent of James Robertson Justice. He played some serious roles, as in Scott of the Antarctic. However, he was best known for bombastic English comedy - especially in the Doctor in the House series. Here he is in good form and supported by Stanley Baxter (also impersonating a German officer) and Leslie Phillips. The direction is by Ken Annakin, who made a number of English comedies and dramas - with Justice in The Sword and The Rose as well as Rob Roy for Walt Disney. In the mid-'60s he moved to Hollywood productions like The Daring Young Men in Their Flying Machines, The Battle of the Bulge and then went on to international filming. He made The Pirate Movie in Australia in 1981.

1. Popular British humour? Enjoyable? Satiric?

2. British production values: black and white photography, the war, the prisoner of war camp? The background of a '60s television show - This Is Your Life? The music hall comedy style, music? Score?

3. British comedians and the style of James Robertson Justice, Stanley Baxter, Leslie Phillips and the supporting cast? Capturing the British sense of humour?

4. The '60s television programme and the This Is Your Life format - popular audiences, the guest, the friends and relations? The irony of the opening and the ending? Like and dislike? The revelation of the warm friendship at the end?

5. James Robertson Justice and his gruff style, intellectual brilliance, his secretary, the mission into Germany, his pomp, the cover and the Navy background, his falling out of the plane, being captured, the first camp and his recital of the routine and not giving any information, the fellow prisoners, the spy? His arrival at the camp, his pomposity, talking to the British officers, his taking over, the humour about his bed? His seeming to be in cahoots with the Germans? The arrival of the spy? His decision to escape, the escape procedure and his being hidden? The clash with the people in the hut? Hiding, his aplomb with the escape? The happy ending? Benign pomposity being humanised?

6. The supporting characters - Leslie Phillips and his cheeky style, in the cell, the music hall act, participation in the escape, the irony of his being a missionary? The contrast with Stanley Baxter and his Scots style, his dislike of the officer, his being an undertaker?

7. Stanley Baxter's humorous style as imitating the German? Being the German officer? The humour of the German officer arriving at the end?

8. The spy infiltrating amongst the prisoners - the touch of reality and memory about the prisoner of war camps?

9. Life in the camps, the parades, escapes, the sports (and the comedy with Erie Sykes), the Swiss visitors, tension, the escape and its success?

10. Affable British humour and a tribute to war heroes?