The Night We Got the Bird * (1960, Brian Rix, Dora Bryan, Ronald Shiner, Leo Franklyn, Irene Handl, John Slater, Liz Fraser) – Classic Movie Review 11,487

Brian Rix returns for director Darcy Conyers’s 1960 British black and white sequel comedy film The Night We Got the Bird, the follow-up to their 1959 hit The Night We Dropped a Clanger.

The Night We Got the Bird is an old-fashioned British farce with an old, old story – the one about a pair of newly-marrieds (Brian Rix as Bertie Skidmore, Dora Bryan as Julie Skidmore) sent crazy by a supposedly reincarnated mouthy South American parrot – the reincarnation of Bryan’s first husband, dodgy Brighton antiques dealer Cecil Gibson (Ronald Shiner) who has died in a road accident and plans to make married life troublesome for Bertie.

The film is crude and often pretty pitiful, with plenty of truly unfunny London Whitehall Theatre farce trouser-dropping moments.

But two factors could make you reconsider an early escape – the huge cast of favourite British comedy performers and the fact that the daft thing proceeds at such a lick that you hardly notice that it is so very feeble.

The script by Ray Cooney, Tony Hilton and Darcy Conyers is based on the play The Love Birds by Basil Thomas.

Also in the cast are Ronald Shiner, Leo Franklyn, Irene Handl, John Slater, Liz Fraser, Reginald Beckwith, Robertson Hare, John le Mesurier, Terry Scott, Kynaston Reeves, Basil Lord, and Vera Pearce.

Liz Fraser, Irene Handl and Vera Pearce return for the original.

The obscure punning title refers to a phrase in English originating in the British 19th century theatre, where hissing like a goose expressed audience disapproval.

It is the last film of Ronald Shiner.

The cast are Brian Rix as Bertie Skidmore, Dora Bryan as Julie Skidmore, Ronald Shiner as Cecil Gibson, Leo Franklyn as Victor, Liz Fraser as Fay, Irene Handl as Ma, Terry Scott as PC Lovejoy, Reginald Beckwith as Chippendale Charlie, John Le Mesurier as Court Clerk, John Slater, Robertson Hare, Kynaston Reeves, Basil Lord and Vera Pearce.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,487

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/