Private's Progress is a Boulting Brothers comedy set in 1943 and made just 10 years after the war ended. Its a surprisingly satirical barb at army life during the war starring Ian Carmichael as Stanley Windrush conscripted from University into the Army and a rather inept soldier during basic training under the watchful eye of William Hartnell playing his usual sergeant type.
Windrush fails to be selected as an officer and ends up under the command of Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) in a rare nice guy role where most of the soldiers are as reluctant as Windrush including a crafty Private Cox (Richard Attenborough).
Windrush gets a posting to train to be a Japanese interpreter and is contacted by his uncle, a Brigadier (Dennis Price) to join a secret operation which is in fact a scam to steal looted artworks from the Germans and sell them on to crooked art dealers. Cox is in with the Brigadier on this scheme.
The film is full of comedy character actors which frequented this type of films in the 1950s and 1960s. Its not laugh out loud but relies on Carmichael's skill as the fish out of water gentle comedy. It almost feels like a vintage Carry on film at the beginning where the plotting is loose and its only in the last third where they go on their mission does the film find focus.
Part of the plot about stealing German art treasures reminded me of the more recent The Monuments Men.
Windrush fails to be selected as an officer and ends up under the command of Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) in a rare nice guy role where most of the soldiers are as reluctant as Windrush including a crafty Private Cox (Richard Attenborough).
Windrush gets a posting to train to be a Japanese interpreter and is contacted by his uncle, a Brigadier (Dennis Price) to join a secret operation which is in fact a scam to steal looted artworks from the Germans and sell them on to crooked art dealers. Cox is in with the Brigadier on this scheme.
The film is full of comedy character actors which frequented this type of films in the 1950s and 1960s. Its not laugh out loud but relies on Carmichael's skill as the fish out of water gentle comedy. It almost feels like a vintage Carry on film at the beginning where the plotting is loose and its only in the last third where they go on their mission does the film find focus.
Part of the plot about stealing German art treasures reminded me of the more recent The Monuments Men.