Climb Up the Wall

This review is only the sixth one for this film probably due to not all that many people having seen it and most have been unkind to it. It could drive viewers "up the wall" but if this had been an early film made by the Monty Python team it would be getting rave reviews as an early MP classic. It contains element reminiscent of Monty Python, The Young Ones and The Goons. Well worth a watch for its curiosity value alone.

I caught this on TV recently and I cannot remember it when it was released (thank goodness). I was 15 in 1960 and very much into pop music but this film was even dated by then. Middle of the road lesser artists of the day. Sure, Russ Conway and Craig Douglas had a number of top ten hits but they appealed more to parents rather then teenagers. Jack Jackson was a reasonably good disc jockey but his humour was both corny and unfunny. I cringed rather than laughed at his so-called jokes. The only saving grace was the excellent version of "Frankie and Johnny"although I do not know the name of the band.

Jack Jackson invents a machine that allows him to show whatever he wants. The rest of the movie is a series of songs by then-popular entertainers, night club acts, and Jackson and Glen Mason indulging in a mix of corny jokes and surreal gags.

It's a very early movie directed by Michael Winner, and I enjoyed it, not just for Michael Bentine, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe appearing in clips, but for the music itself, which seems to feature very strong beats in pleasant contemporary pop music. It's one of several British movies made in the period which paired slight stories and contemporary acts, but Winner and Jackson, who are credited as writers, abandoned the pretense, and I think it works better than most.

This early Michael Winner film is not so much a movie, more a collage of light and not so time relevant musical comedy interludes and sketches. Most of the cameos are from people I don't recognise or have never heard of given I was born 18 years after the film's release date, but the plethora of names appearing as themselves would probably be more relevant to someone a generation above me, or to someone viewing this at its time of release. It's a curious film given its a musical of sorts, without a clear plot, but different, and arguably unique for its time, however never that entertaining. Fans of Peter Sellers may want to watch his short contribution, which is not more than a couple of minutes long, but it does offer something of relevance to a modern audience.

Thus is an old joke updated to the era of juke boxes and espresso bars, as delivered by a boyishly young Craig Douglas.

Michael Winner was almost the same age when he directed this nonsense as Orson Welles - who he would be directing a few years later in 'I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname' - when Welles made 'Citizen Kane'. The found footage thrown in to surround TV DJ Jack Johnson ranges from Charlie Kunz to Elvis Presley in this incredible early proof of the tireless energy and confidence with which the young Winner broke into movies.

And stayed there!