Operation Bullshine ** (1959, Donald Sinden, Barbara Murray, Carole Lesley, Ronald Shiner, Naunton Wayne, Daniel Massey, Dora Bryan)

The silly, flimsy 1959 British film Operation Bullshine is a harmless and mildly diverting wartime services comedy starring Donald Sinden, Barbara Murray, Carole Lesley, Ronald Shiner, Naunton Wayne and Dora Bryan.

Director Gilbert Gunn’s 1959 British film Operation Bullshine stars Donald Sinden, Barbara Murray, Carole Lesley, Ronald Shiner, Naunton Wayne, Daniel Massey, and Dora Bryan. There’s comedic trouble when Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) girls are posted to a light Ack-Ack Command post on the English coast in the Second World War.

Operation Bullshine is a silly, flimsy but harmless and mildly diverting wartime services comedy, in which Major Pym (Naunton Wayne) believes that Lieutenant Gordon Brown (Donald Sinden), who is secretly married to woman soldier Private Betty Brown (Barbara Murray), is having an affair with young Private Marge White (Carole Lesley) – and now Murray starts to suspect her husband of infidelity too.

Director Gunn is one of three writers (with Anne Burnaby and Rupert Lang), but they do not put enough jokes on parade, though they crammed the script with bullshine.

Still, it is quite nicely acted by the practised performers, some of them national treasures.

Also in the cast are Marianne Stone, Fabia Drake, Peter Jones, Ambrosine Phillpotts. Joan Rice, John Welsh, Brian Weske, John Cairney, Cyril Chamberlain, Naomi Chance, Harry Landis, Barbara Hicks, George Mikell, Julie Alexander (her debut), and Amanda Barrie.

Operation Bullshine is directed by Gilbert Gunn, runs 84 minutes, is made by Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), is released by Associated British-Pathé, is written by Anne Burnaby, Rupert Lang and Gilbert Gunn, is shot by Gilbert Taylor, is produced by Frank Godwin, is scored by Laurie Johnson, and designed by Robert Jones.

Release date: June 30, 1959 (London).

‘To bullshine’ means to make a witty speech using bullshit to turn an undesirable event into an immensely favourable situation.

‘She declined his sexual proposition, but he bullshined his way into her sopping wet loins.’

‘**** was going to prison for crack possession, but he bullshined the jury.’

‘**** News is bullshining current events again.’

The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was the women’s branch of the British Army in the Second World War. Anti-Aircraft Command (AA Command or Ack-Ack Command) was a British Army command of the Second World War controlling the Territorial Army anti-aircraft artillery and searchlight formations and units defending the UK.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,022

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