Brandy for the Parson (1952) User Reviews

Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark - Brandy for the Parson, ' Baccy for the Clerk.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 24 January 2011]

Brandy for the Parson comes out of Group 3 Productions and Southall Studios. It's directed by John Eldridge and adapted for the screen by John Dighton (The Man in the White Suit/Kind Hearts and Coronets) & Walter Meade (Scott of the Antarctic) from a story by Geoffrey Household. It stars James Donald, Kenneth More, Jean Lodge, Frederick Piper, Charles Hawtrey & Alfie Bass. Music is by John Addison and Martin Curtis is on cinematography.

Young couple Bill (Donald) & Petronilla (Lodge) find their yachting holiday turned upside down after a collision with Tony Rackham (More). For Tony is smuggling Brandy from France to London! And now that he has no boat, the young couple are obliged to help him. With the Customs Office on their tail and their destination seemingly miles and miles away, it will need a lot of fortune to go their way if they are to evade capture and stay out of prison.

No doubt about it, Brandy for the Parson is something akin to entering a time warp. But that is meant in the nicest possible way. Group 3 was a British company set up to give young film makers a chance in the industry, some of their 50s productions have finally made it on to DVD. The likes of Miss Robin Hood, The Love Match, Orders Are Orders, Make Me an Offer and this here smuggling caper, all encompass a British sensibility that makes them stand out on their own: well more that they can't be bracketed with the best of Ealing, Powell & Pressburger and the Boulting Brothers. They are film's that are rough around the edges but have a charming appeal that's unique to fans of British comedy movies from the 50s. With that in mind, they are not for everyone, and certainly not all of them are film's easy to recommend. But for those of a similar persuasion to myself there is much to enjoy.

Brandy for the Parson only runs at 73 minutes and does contain a cast worthy of a bigger production. Kenneth More is now the name actor on show, tho at the time of release he was secondary to James Donald, while Hawtrey, Bass and Piper are well known for work elsewhere. But it's a fine collective of actors regardless of budget. The film eases along without any need for exuberance, it's a solid premise that sees the innocent pulled into an adventure that they didn't court. The fun is not so much that they are fishes out of water, the entertainment is that they embrace the challenge and take it on with a stiff upper lip. Not to mention the number of characters they meet along the way who are only too eager to help our needy trio; regardless of knowing the truth or not. Away from the safe story and how it's knowingly acted, the work of Addison and Curtis is worthy of a second viewing. Addison's score is jaunty and completely in keeping with the pace of the film, while Curtis' photography brings to life a Devonshire harbour and captures some beautiful English countryside in a way that the great Jack Cardiff would have been proud of.

So easy on the eyes and ears, then, and also a film that is easy to warm too for those not expecting side splitting satire or farce. 7/10

Carry on Smuggling

[howardmorley · 6/10 · 4 February 2012]

I was tempted to give this review the alternative summary heading of "Lights In The Water Again"."Lights" was the pet name given to Charles Herbert Lightoller" ("Titanic's" second officer) by his colleagues.Kenneth More who played this role in the film ended up in the drink in "A Night to Remember"(1958) and here again he ends up there after a holiday couple James Donald/Jean Lodge ram his boat which also sinks.However the overriding theme was a forerunner of "Carry On Films" hence my summary title with a whole lot of improbable characters and situations.In the early post war years Britain was a very grey place in which to live, with food rationing, rigid control of foreign exchange and the excise duties levied on wines & spirits & luxuries bought from the Contintent.

Film makers, being rather romantic people at heart, have their sympathy with the smugglers who were given a rather heroic role.Other reviewers have mentioned "Green Grow the Rushes" & "Whiskey Galore" as two post war films which harped on this theme of romantic smuggling; after all Britain had a mountainous post war debt to repay (mainly to the U.S.A. which was not actually repaid until 1986).UK authorities had draconian laws against excise duty evasion, much to the chagrin of the general public.

The boy who played a cub was "a sixer". I could tell because I was a "seconder" cub in the 1950s."Sixers" had two stars at the front of their cap and led their patrol while "seconders" were deputies of the sixer and had one star there.The older boy scouts also helped to unwittingly transport the illicit cargo on the basis of "Bob-a Job".I kept smiling when Charles Hawtrey appeared as a dim laundry driver and the whole film appeared a softer, low key version of the "Carry On" films.This film predates the first in the series, "Carry On Seargant" (1958) by 6 years.I briefly noticed Wensley Pithey who played Inspector Charlesworth a 1950/60s TV detective.When the circus ponies (used for transporting the brandy)rested in a field there was a musical snippet of "The Post Horn Gallop", but how the principal characters obtained permission from the circus owners of the ponies was never quite revealed.

As usual in a farce about smuggling the authorities are always one step behind the smugglers but as there was also a moral code in films of this vintage, James Donald, Jean Lodge, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth More and a local farmer have their comeuppance in court.However who paid their court fine was not made clear!I voted 6/10.

A film of two halves

[kiskaloo · 7/10 · 29 January 2014]

I love the gentle comedies that came out of the British film industry in the late 1940's to the mid 1950's. The Ealing comedies being a prime example of these, but, other studios were also producing them as well. This little movie is an example of such comedies, but, what a strange one as the first half was pretty flat, but, it perked up in the second half. Bill and Petronella go on a boating holiday and accidentally sink Tony Rackham's boat, they agree to take him to France to pick up some 'goods', but, it is clear Tony is no sailor and up to no good. Bill and Petronella wind up becoming embroiled in his scheme, this is the film's greatest weakness as Bill comes across as a 'blithering idiot' for allowing this to happen and it doesn't make sense (by the way, there is a part of the film where the term 'blithering' is cringingly over used) Luckily for us, the movie picks up and turns into a rather charming road movie involving ponies and is a very likable film by the end, although, it feels like they ran out of ideas of how to end it completely satisfactorily. The cast is very good, with solid performances all around, I have to admit the usually excellent and reliable James Donald isn't given much to work with and it shows, Jean Lodge is good, a last minute replacement for Audrey Hepburn and coincidentally, the producer's wife,but,still good. Kenneth More is always good and this is no exception and this has to be my favorite Charles Hawtrey performance. For me, the weakest point is the dialogue, the storyline is sweet and I love the sequence with the bus, the men getting off the bus brings back memories of day trips my street went on in the 1970's (although, how could Bill and Petronella not heard the crash?) Charming and a nice way to spend just over an hour,but, no Genevieve although with better dialogue and direction could have been closer to a classic like that movie.

Location shots alone make it a keeper for England country-side lovers.

[horn-5 · 1 June 2006]

"Brandy for the Parson" was the first film for Britains' Group 3, Ltd., set up to "encourage young film makers of talent and promise," and this lightweight comedy comes through via cast and crew on the "talent and promise" attributes, especially with the musical background written by John Addison.

Bill Harper (James Donald) and Petronilla Brand (Jean Lodge) are a young couple that, through a series of mishaps and accidents, get unintentionally involved in a brandy-smuggling (from France) racket.

Because of an accidental sinking of Tony Rackham's (Kenneth More)boat, Bill and Patricia take him across the Channel on their boat which, to their dismay, is soon filled with several kegs of brandy. It then evolves into a series of intentional and unintentional dodges trying to evade the Customs officials.

Kenneth More does his best, and so do all those great British character actors

[Terrell-4 · 7/10 · 12 March 2009]

Sing their names with praise: The Titfield Thunderbolt, Whisky Galore, The Lavender Hill Mob, Passport to Pimlico, The Man in the White Suit. These and other British comedies from the late Forties and early Fifties brought delight and charm not just to the British but also to a large number of Americans. We'd find ourselves in highly unlikely, sometimes ridiculous circumstances during which the actors played their roles with oblivious seriousness, without a wink or smirk to the audience. The writing was clever, the direction was brisk and the acting was highly skilled deadpan. Brandy for the Parson, filmed in 1952, tries hard to be a member of that group, doesn't quite make it, but still has much to appreciate.

A young couple, Bill Harper and Petronilla Brand (James Donald and Jean Lodge), out for a boating holiday, manage to hit and sink Tony Rackman's boat. They wind up conned into taking Tony (Kenneth More) to a French port where he says he was going to pick up a few things. It turns out the "things" are 12 barrels of prized and illegal brandy. By the time our couple and Tony get the barrels back to England, the custom's inspectors are after them. Bill and Petronilla reluctantly feel they must help Tony. After all, they sank his boat, it's not much brandy and, with the inspectors after all of them, they don't have much choice. So now we're off on a series of improbable adventures involving everything and everyone from a Boy Scout troop, trained circus ponies, the Lascombe Steam Laundry van and its delivery driver, George Crumb (Charles Hawtrey), shady pub owners, effete wine merchants, a gentleman farmer who knows too well the price of brandy and an assortment of some very capable, pungent British character actors.

But, oh, is the pace leisurely. Individual scenes are amusing, but the movie at times just slogs along. Adding to the problem of pace is that we see too little of that confident and charismatic extrovert, Kenneth More, and too much of the uncharismatic and often dour James Donald. More, after years as a strong second lead, crashed into major stardom as Ambrose Claverhouse with his next movie, Genevieve. He brings conniving good cheer to the movie, but he disappears for a good deal of the middle. James Donald, on the other hand, was a fine actor in secondary roles. You might remember him as the major who cries "Madness! Madness!" in The Bridge on the River Kwai. He was the kind of humorless, thoughtful actor who telegraphs how hard he's acting when he has to smile. Still, the character actors, some just briefly seen, keep giving us pleasant surprises...men and women like Alfie Bass, Reginald Beckwith, Arthur Wonter, Frank Tickle, Patience Rintoul and so many others. Almost every small role is a gem. How does Britain cultivate these people? America seems to have nothing like them. Especially, there is Charles Hawtrey as the Lascombe laundryman who winds up as a more-or-less innocent accomplice to Tony, Bill and Pretronilla.

Hawtrey was a small, thin, bespectacled man who, as part of the Carry On gang from 1959 to 1972, raised mincing about to an art form. He looked a little like a cross between a small Clifton Webb (without the waspish superiority) and a young Ernest Thesiger. While discreet in his personal relationships and activities (homosexuality at this time was a crime in Britain) he made no effort to be anything than who he was. As the years moved on Hawtrey became a passionate alcoholic, an enthusiastic collector of brass headboards and teenagers, and a flamboyant greeter of sailors. He quit the Carry On series in a dispute over billing and refused all entreaties to return. He seemed to have no close friends and often alienated the unclose ones. He was 73 when his doctors discovered the arteries in his legs were hopelessly diseased. When they told him his legs had to be amputated or he would die, he categorically refused. He supposedly told them he preferred to die with his boots on. He did, a month later. I doubt if I'd have wanted to spend much time with Hawtrey, but I can't help liking him. He was uproariously shameless flouncing about in all those Carry On movies.

I give the movie a better vote than it deserves because I like the memory of all those fine British comedies of the period, because I'm admirer of Kenneth More and because so many great character actors were stuffed into every scene.

Make that 7.5!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 7 October 2017]

Associate producer: Alfred Shaughnessy. Executive producer: John Grierson. Narrated by Kenneth More. A Group 3 Production, released in the U.K. by Associated British, in Australia by B.E.F. (16 July 1953), in the U.S.A. by Mayer Kingsley. New York opening at the Park Avenue: 16 August 1952. Registered: February 1952. "U" certificate. 7,033 feet. 78 minutes.

COMMENT: In style, this agreeable comedy derives from the Ealing genre and although its picaresque adventures are not particularly original, the mood is fresh and bracing (thanks in part to a great deal of location filming) and the characters are engaging and likable.

I would have preferred that the script had more wit and the direction more sparkle, but the amusing situations, excellent playing and very pleasing location work carry the film through.

Eldridge ("Waverley Steps", "Three Dawns to Sydney") is not altogether at ease with comedy and goes in for some lyrical landscape photography which is attractive but a trifle irrelevant. But he has an undoubted narrative gift and the performances he elicits are genuine creations of character.

The mood is also well sustained and the comedy is never pushed too far into farce. Production values are excellent and credits professionally smooth. (Available on a Slam Dunk DVD of poor sound quality, especially in the first 20 minutes, but reasonably watchable.

woeful subEaling comedy

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 12 January 2012]

It is funny how once Ealing had produced an innovative comedy lesser producers came along with an attempt to ride on their shirtails.For example Passport to Pimlico beget the far lesser Green Grow The Rushes.In this instance Whiskey Galore was clearly the inspiration.The problem is that the producers didn't have the talented casts,director or writers and so what they ended up with was a woefully unfunny production littered with eccentric actors doing eccentric things in the hope that they might just light a spark.The leading players are just not cut out for playing this type of comedy.The writers and directors have clearly felt that if they piled one unusual incident on top of another then at least some may come to life.Well they don't and the stalwart character actors can do nothing to save this leaden farce which feels as if it is twice its brief running time.

Messing About in Boats

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 17 March 2021]

The first of three aggressively light-hearted comedies attractively shot on location (this time it's the fictitious village of Brampton on the Kent coast) directed for Group Three by former documentarist John Eldridge before he died at the age of just 43.

Yet another British film of the period when postwar shortages invested smuggling with - as a judge dryly puts it - a "spurious aura of adventure and romance", the smuggler this time being a dashing young Kenneth More. But by far the most fascinating performance actually comes from Jean Lodge, plainly in reality haughty and high maintenance, but working jolly hard at being a jaunty good sport in the sort of role usually played by Dinah Sheridan.

Acceptable British comedy, if dated

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 7 June 2017]

BRANDY FOR THE PARSON is an acceptable British comedy of the old-fashioned variety. James Donald and Jean Lodge play a couple of boaters who through various reasons get involved in the likable Kenneth Moore's smuggling route running between the south coast and France. What follows is a comedy of errors as they try to avoid the authorities and customs inspectors at every turn. Donald and Lodge are slightly stiff as the leads but Moore is dependable and Charles Hawtrey is a welcome presence to boot. Watch out for cameos from the likes of Alfie Bass, Reginald Beckwith, and Sam Kydd.

Watch The Film, My Darling

[boblipton · 6/10 · 10 February 2020]

James Donald, Kenneth More, and Jean Lodge are asked by a sailor with a foundering ship to head over to France and pick up something for him. It turns out to be brandy for smuggling. When they get it back to England, they find it's much in demand.... but somehow they can't get it off their hands.

It's a rather slow comedy, but that's because it's shot in the fields and towns and standing stones dotting the pleasant lands of the country, and the jokes punctuate the situations, rather than being the point of this amiable film.

It's a first starring role for Kenneth More, who's second-billed after James Donald. It was almost Audrey Hepburn's first lead, but delays in production ended with her replacement by Miss Lodge

Brand D.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 25 November 2023]

While there are some funny moments in this British quota quickie comedy, it's far too frenetic and stuffed to fully satisfy like a swig of the real stuff. Far too gimmicky in spots, filled with human voices suddenly replaced by animal noises and going all over the place in a very quick 80 minutes. There are moments that had me smiling, but no real laughs here.

The plot focuses on a young apparently unmarried couple (James Donald and Jean Lodge) om a yachting trip, involved with his pal Kenneth More who hitches a ride, smuggling illegal hooch among his cargo. The two end up off the yacht, in the countryside, among a bunch of dressed up horses from a traveling circus, and into more trouble. The English countryside is pretty, but the photography makes it seem rather flat. Lots of chat and little action results in it becoming frustratingly noisy and rather pointless.

Entertaining, enjoyable film

[Beakyboy · 8/10 · 13 August 2020]

Watched on UK's Talking Pictures, a low budget channel who find gems like this film. The copy was a little dark and sound muffled but this film is a bit of a gem I have never seen before.

The insights into life in post war England are interesting (especially the cars). The story is perfectly acceptable for its time, surprisingly the actors include many British stalwarts from the era. The script, that could easily be brought up to date, is more light-hearted than comedy, without a gun, car chase, nudity or swearing that modern film-makers seemingly have to use. I would give it more stars if the character development were greater but the running time prevented this.

All in all a film I enjoyed and hope to see many more like it as Talking Pictures unearth them.