This was a spin off from a pioneering BBC musical comedy radio series with Arthur Big-Hearted Askey and Richard Stinker Murdoch as the stars which ran for 55 episodes in 1938/39. Sadly as usual very little survives of those broadcasts, but we can get a flavour of the madness from this film. I taped this on 7th February 1987, in the days when BBC TV used to show Golden Age films at reasonable hours without reason or introduction, and my daughter and I must have seen it more than umpteen times since.
Big and Stinker are discovered after months of living on the roof of Broadcasting House with their chickens and Lewis the goat, waiting for their chance at stardom. On their subsequent aimless travels in their overladen car, the Askeytoff II, they end up renting the haunted Droom Castle for the princely sum of £3. The perfectly natural explanation for the ghost is that Nazis are at the bottom of it all (in the basement), using a TV hook-up to Berlin of course. Arthur has a much better idea: put on a pirate TV station and broadcast a music show that night in competition with the stuffy old BBC. Jack Hylton (and Louis Levy!) and his band plus the then 18 year old Pat Kirkwood were used well in The (very long) Melody Maker, Band Waggon, Heaven Would Be Heavenly, The Only One Who's Difficult Is You, A Pretty Little Bird Am I and Boomps-A-Daisy. It must have seemed a little strange when released in March 1940: BBC TV had closed down 2 days before War with Germany was declared in September 1939 and Band Waggon had ended its radio run in the November. Favourite bits: Big and Stinker waking up to another day's idling on the BBC roof; entering the castle for the first time; the Old King Cole oratorio; Pat Kirkwood in pirate costume; Arthur on a dusty organ reprising his Big-Hearted theme song. A few of his routines can sound very camp this side of WW2, but there won't ever be another like him. Jack Hylton's recording career began in 1921 but he only made a dozen more recordings after doing the 78's for this - the vibrant British Dance Band scene had shifted to flat foxtrots, American Swing and Latin American rhythms and the War seemed a good time to change jobs too. Pat Kirkwood died Christmas 2007 as the last survivor of this film, indeed of pre-War British musical comedy. In these days when the Queen showers honours like confetti on rugby players and myriad chancers alike Kirkwood's 60 year career was rewarded with a 60 year grudge.
This was one of Arthur's best films with Ghost Train and Back Room Boy still to come and well worth the price of the budget DVD to see what made him and Murdoch tick, along with plenty of pre-War humour and a rather quaint view of television.
Big and Stinker are discovered after months of living on the roof of Broadcasting House with their chickens and Lewis the goat, waiting for their chance at stardom. On their subsequent aimless travels in their overladen car, the Askeytoff II, they end up renting the haunted Droom Castle for the princely sum of £3. The perfectly natural explanation for the ghost is that Nazis are at the bottom of it all (in the basement), using a TV hook-up to Berlin of course. Arthur has a much better idea: put on a pirate TV station and broadcast a music show that night in competition with the stuffy old BBC. Jack Hylton (and Louis Levy!) and his band plus the then 18 year old Pat Kirkwood were used well in The (very long) Melody Maker, Band Waggon, Heaven Would Be Heavenly, The Only One Who's Difficult Is You, A Pretty Little Bird Am I and Boomps-A-Daisy. It must have seemed a little strange when released in March 1940: BBC TV had closed down 2 days before War with Germany was declared in September 1939 and Band Waggon had ended its radio run in the November. Favourite bits: Big and Stinker waking up to another day's idling on the BBC roof; entering the castle for the first time; the Old King Cole oratorio; Pat Kirkwood in pirate costume; Arthur on a dusty organ reprising his Big-Hearted theme song. A few of his routines can sound very camp this side of WW2, but there won't ever be another like him. Jack Hylton's recording career began in 1921 but he only made a dozen more recordings after doing the 78's for this - the vibrant British Dance Band scene had shifted to flat foxtrots, American Swing and Latin American rhythms and the War seemed a good time to change jobs too. Pat Kirkwood died Christmas 2007 as the last survivor of this film, indeed of pre-War British musical comedy. In these days when the Queen showers honours like confetti on rugby players and myriad chancers alike Kirkwood's 60 year career was rewarded with a 60 year grudge.
This was one of Arthur's best films with Ghost Train and Back Room Boy still to come and well worth the price of the budget DVD to see what made him and Murdoch tick, along with plenty of pre-War humour and a rather quaint view of television.