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Reviews
Crook's Tour (1940)
Charters and Caldicott in the Middle East
This is the third of the four films in which Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne play Charters and Caldicott, a couple of true-blue, somewhat dim, Englishmen whose main enthusiasm is cricket, their second being golf.
Charters and Caldicott first appear, in supporting roles, in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". They next played very similar parts in "Night Train to Munich"the reluctant and rather bumbling assistants to the dashing lead players.
In this film they play the leads and though still tentative about becoming involved, they certainly doand triumph in the end. Starting out in the desert in Saudi Arabia on a tour bus they reach Baghdad and while killing time, waiting for their train to Istanbul, go to a nightclub for something to eat. Here the management assumes they are two agents sent to pick up some top secret German plans to sabotage an Iraqi oil pipeline. They are given these and are pursued by the enemy agents to Budapest and to a castle on the Hungarian border, escaping several attempts on their lives by a series of flukes.
Not a great film, but certainly amusing, and for those who enjoyed the first two films, a must-see.
Once More, with Feeling! (1960)
A must for Kay Kendall Fans
I finally found a copy of this which I had not seen since it came out. I still found it wonderfully funny and vintage Kendall. Perhaps the reason why this movie has not survived in the public arena is that it deals with a couple "living in sin" who have to marry in order to divorce after a 7 or 8-year liaison in order to satisfy public morality. Seems unbelievable now, but can think of no other reason, other than perhaps Kay Kendall's estate is difficult about her films.
Another Kendall movie which seems to be unattainable is "Simon and Laura" with Peter Finch. This film takes a rather cynical look at the TV industry, viewer loyalty, and "soaps" and these aspects might be a reason for its suppression. Since writing this, it has just been released on DVD in the U.K.(March 2007)