Very Important Person (film)
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Very Important Person | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ken Annakin |
Produced by | Leslie Parkyn Julian Wintle |
Written by | Jack Davies Henry Blyth John Foley (novel) |
Starring | James Robertson Justice Stanley Baxter Leslie Phillips |
Distributed by | Rank |
Release date(s) | 1961 |
Running time | 98 min. |
Language | English |
IMDb profile |
Very Important Person is a 1961 British comedy film, directed by Ken Annakin, and written by Henry Blyth and Jack Davies. In the United States, the film was re-titled A Coming Out Party.
The film contains fine performances from several well-known British comedy and character actors, including James Robertson Justice, Stanley Baxter as both a dour Scottish prisoner and the camp Kommandant, Eric Sykes as a sports fanatic, John Le Mesurier as the Escape officer, Leslie Phillips, and Richard Wattis as the emotional Entertainments officer, desperately trying to coax quality performances out of would-be entertainers.
[edit] Plot
Sir Earnest Pease (James Robertson Justice), a brilliant but acerbic scientist working on aircraft research during World War 2, takes a trip on a bomber to observe the results of his work. The bomber is damaged over Germany and he is forced to parachute out. He is captured and, after interrogation under his alias of Lieutenant Farrow of the Royal Navy, he is sent to a POW camp, mostly occupied by RAF officers.
His excellent command of the German language causes him to be suspected of being a German agent, but when his real identity becomes known to the Senior British Officer (Norman Bird), he orders that the officers in his hut cooperate to help him escape.
Pease/Farrow concocts a plan whereby he is believed to have escaped "through the wire". In fact, he plans to go into hiding and later walk out of the camp, disguised as one of three visiting Swiss Red Cross observers. Crucial to the escape plan is that the scotsman (Baxter) looks exactly like the camp Commandant (even though he describes him as "hideously ugly"). He must pretend to be the Commandant if Pease/ Farrow is to escape.
Pease initially views his somewhat happy-go-lucky fellow prisoners, especially Jimmy Cooper (Leslie Phillips), Everett (Stanley Baxter) and "Bonzo" Baines (Jeremy Lloyd) with disdain, but comes to understand and appreciate their optimistic attitudes under the prison system they find themselves in.
Whilst the prisoners busy themselves with organising camp concerts and sports, the plan goes ahead. But it nearly comes unstuck at the last moment, when one of the prisoners, "Grassy" Green (John Forrest) is revealed as a real Luftwaffe officer and spy. He is "dealt with", and the three prisoners calmly walk out of the camp and eventually make their way back home.
[edit] Cast
- James Robertson Justice - Sir Ernest Pease; aka: Lt. Farrow RN
- Leslie Phillips - Jimmy Cooper
- Stanley Baxter - Jock' Everett/Kommandant Stamfel
- Eric Sykes - Willoughby, Sports Officer
- Richard Wattis - Woodcock, Entertainments Officer
- John Le Mesurier - Piggott, Escape Officer
- Norman Bird - Travers, Senior British Officer
- Jeremy Lloyd - 'Bonzo' Baines
- Godfrey Winn - Himself
- John Forrest - 'Grassy' Green
[edit] Quote
Sir Ernest Pease to the others in his hut:
"Cooking requires no intelligence. Were it otherwise women would be no good at it."