Down Among the Z Men *** (1952, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers) – Classic Movie Review 8554

Director Maclean Rogers’s 1952 British radio spinoff comedy Down Among the Z Men [Stand Easy] finds BBC Fifties radio’s zany Goon Show comics Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine are stuck down among the Z-movie men in a cramped studio, mixing wild gags with simple army comedy, a few songs from crooner Carole Carr and the high-kicking dancing feet of the Television Toppers chorus girls (as Leslie Roberts Twelve Toppers).

The laughs are held back by the amateurish air, the musical turns and rickety plot about robbers out to snatch a scientist’s secrets. But the very lively star quartet tries very hard, and of course it is a treat to see them looking so young at the start of their careers, and it is a precious record of some of The Goons’ favourite routines.

Bentine plays scientist Professor Osrick Purehart who loses his top-secret formula in the grocery shop of Harry Jones (Secombe), who finds it and tries to return it, despite the robbers. Milligan plays Private Eccles and Sellers plays Colonel Bloodnok.

Also in the cast are Clifford Stanton, Robert Cawdron, Andrew Timothy, Graham Stark, Russ Allen, Miriam Karlin, Sidney Vivian and Eunice Gayson.

Down Among the Z Men [Stand Easy] is directed by Maclean Rogers, runs 82 minutes, is made by E J Fancey Productions, is released by New Realm Pictures (1952) (UK), is written by Jimmy Grafton and Francis Charles, is shot in black and white by Geoffrey Faithfull, is produced by E J Fancey and Jimmy Grafton, is scored by Jack Jordan, and designed by Don Russell.

Carole Carr sings Down Among the Z Men (music by Jack Jordan, lyrics by James Douglas, aka Jimmy Grafton).

It was filmed at Kay’s Studio, Carlton Hill, Maida Vale, London.

Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan followed it with The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn (1956).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8554

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