Tommy the Toreador ** (1959, Tommy Steele, Janet Munro, Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Eric Sykes, Bernard Cribbins) – Classic Movie Review 11,281

Director John Paddy Carstairs’s 1959 British Technicolor film Tommy the Toreador [Rock around the World] is a reasonable comedy-musical vehicle for likeable, energetic pop star Tommy Steele as a poor seaman in Spain who takes the place of a bullfighter framed for smuggling.

Guaranteed laughter-makers Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Eric Sykes and Bernard Cribbins carry on amusingly in support, and Carry On writers Talbot Rothwell and Sid Colin had a hand (with Nicholas Phipps) with additional dialogue in the often weak script.

The story and screenplay are by the producer George H Brown and Patrick Kirwan.

The hit songs Little White Bull and the title track help to lift any gloom.

Also in the cast are Janet Munro, José Nieto [Pepe Nieto], Noel Purcell, Charles Gray, Warren Mitchell, Francis De Woolf, Virgilio Teixeira, Ferdy Mayne, Harold Kasket, Tutte Lemkow and Edwin Richfield.

It is made at Associated British Elstree Studios, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England.

Sid Colin wrote the original screenplay for Carry On Spying.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,281

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