Down Among the Z Men (1952)

Director:

Maclean Rogers

Writers:

Francis Charles (writer)
Jimmy Grafton (writer)

Release Date:

October 1952 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

The cast of the popular radio program "The Goon Show" perform some of their favourite routines.

Plot Keywords:

Goon Show

Cast

Harry Secombe	...	Harry Jones
Michael Bentine	...	Prof. Osrick Purehart
Spike Milligan	...	Pvt. Eccles
Peter Sellers	...	Major Bloodnok
Carole Carr	...	Carole Gayley
Twelve Toppers		(as Leslie Roberts' Twelve Toppers)
Clifford Stanton	...	Stanton
Robert Cawdron
Andrew Timothy	...	Captain Evans
Graham Stark	...	Spider
Russ Allen
Elizabeth Kearns	...	Girl in Shop
Miriam Karlin	...	Woman in Shop
Sidney Vivian	...	Isaiah Crabb
Howell Evans

Also Known As:

Stand Easy
The Goon Movie
The Goon Show Movie (video title)

Runtime:

USA:82 min | UK:71 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Company:

E.J. Fancey Productions

Trivia:

Stanton, one of the soldiers, does an impersonation of Danny Kaye.

Soundtrack:

Down Among the Z Men

DOWN AMONG THE Z MEN (Maclean Rogers, 1952) **

This independently-produced British army comedy is chiefly notable now as Peter Sellers' film debut and for being the only starring screen vehicle for comic radio performers The Goons (of which Sellers himself was a member). Actually, it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated – given the unenthusiastic reviews online (chiefly because it's said that their material has been heavily diluted in the transition); still, it's not helped by the dated TV-style technique on display.

Curiously enough, the laughs come mostly from the characterization of a scruffy, absent-minded Professor played by Michael Bentine – the least-known and shortest-lived member of the group! Of the other three, Harry Secombe is the nominal lead – but his character doesn't have a distinct personality (at least in this incarnation); Spike Milligan is a private whose dopey countenance and voice seems to have been inspired by Goofy, the canine star of Walt Disney cartoons!; Peter Sellers, surely the Goon with the most prominent subsequent career (I've just acquired a number of his work from the 1960s and 1970s), is reasonably impressive – if basically playing it straight – as an elderly Major.

The plot has to do with a secret gas formula devised by Bentine, which is coveted by enemy agents who infiltrate the camp (looking out for him is a female member of M.I.5 passing herself off as Sellers' daughter); Secombe, then, is the everyman hero who unwittingly finds himself 'drafted'. Unfortunately, most of the second half (the film runs for a mere 71 minutes) is taken up by a putting-on-a-show routine showcasing a number of resistible song-and-dance performers – though the busy climax, at least, shows three of The Goons all dressed in similar outfits to confuse the villains (a gag probably lifted from The Crazy Gang's THE FROZEN LIMITS [1939], which I've recently watched)...while Sellers, somewhat irrelevantly, does a couple of impersonations on stage (a great talent he possessed and which he would constantly fall back on for the rest of his career).