On the Fiddle [Operation Snafu] *** (1961, Alfred Lynch, Sean Connery, Victor Maddern, Cecil Parker, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde White, Kathleen Harrison) – Classic Movie Review 8139

Director Cyril Frankel’s 1961 On the Fiddle [Operation Snafu] is an enjoyably fun and fairly smart British black and white World War Two wartime farce, made out of its time at the start of the Sixties. It follows the adventures of a Cockney smoothie named Horace Pope (Alfred Lynch) and a dim-witted Scot called Pedlar Pascoe (Sean Connery) as new recruit buddies out for some fun and games in the British Royal Air Force.

The young Lynch and Connery are jolly company, there is the regular fine British support all present and correct, and, happily, a much sharper than usual script (adapted by Harold Buchman from the novel Stop at a Winner by R F Delderfield) to keep the easy-going tale bubbling along under Frankel’s attentive direction.

Connery gets star billing but he is playing second fiddle to Lynch. It was the year before Connery exploded as a superstar as James Bond in Dr No (1962). But his career was already going well, and arguably he would have been a real star actor even without Bond.

Also in the cast are Cecil Parker as Group Captain Bascombe, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde White, Kathleen Harrison, Alan King, Eleanor Summerfield, Eric Barker, Terence Longdon, John le Mesurier, Harry Locke, Victor Maddern, Lance Percival, Viola Keats, Peter Sinclair, Jack Lambert, Cyril Smith, Graham Stark, Miriam Karlin, Bill Owen, Ian Whittaker, Barbara Windsor, Monty Landis, Toni Palmer, Kenneth J Warren, Ann Beach, Simon Lack, Harold Goodwin, Beatrix Lehmann, Jack Smethurst, Patsy Rowlands and Mike Sarne.

In the wake of the James Bond success, the movie was finally released in the US in 1965 by American International Pictures as Operation Snafu.

On the Fiddle [Operation Snafu] is directed by Cyril Frankel, runs 97 minutes, is made by S Benjamin Fisz Productions and Coronado Productions, is released by Anglo-Amalgamated, is written by Harold Buchman, based on the novel Stop at a Winner by R F Delderfield, is shot in black and white by Ted Scaife, is produced by S Benjamin Fisz, and is scored by Malcolm Arnold.

Lynch and Connery re-teamed for The Hill (1965).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 8139

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