Parky at the Pictures (DVD 11/10/2012)

William Pratt made few films in his homeland after finding fame in Hollywood as Boris Karloff. However, the lugubrious Londoner is in fine form in Robert Stevenson's The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936), a variation on the Frankenstein theme in which he plays a scientist researching the transference of memory and personality. Seizing the opportunity to become increasingly unhinged in Alex Vetchinsky's wonderfully atmospheric laboratory sets, Karloff is ably supported by a relishable cast of character stalwarts, whose impersonations of each others mannerisms once the vital grey matter has been exchanged greatly adds to the enjoyment of this creaky old chiller.

Convinced he is on the verge of a major breakthrough in his intellective transmogrification experiments, Karloff persuades promising surgeon Anna Lee to join him in the remote manor where he has been toiling with wheelchair-bound assistant, Donald Calthrop. Having struck a sponsorship deal with irascible newspaper tycoon Frank Cellier, Karloff presents his findings to his peers, only to be mocked as a charlatan. So, he vows to prove them wrong and proceeds to swap the minds of Calthrop and Cellier with alarming results.

However, such is his desire to seduce Lee that Karloff also decides to implant his own mind in the strapping torso of Cellier's son, John Loder. But he soon finds himself facing a murder charge and Lee has to call on mentor Cecil Parker to try and restore the status quo before the laws of both the land and nature can be further breached.

In the decade that followed, Gainsborough Pictures would become synonymous with bodice-ripping melodramas starring James Mason and Margaret Lockwood. But this Michael Balcon-produced outing is every bit as racy in its exploration of ambition, lust and evil, with Karloff's passion for the chaste Lee forever simmering like the contents of a retort in his lab. The discussion of the moral responsibility of science may be essentially superficial (indeed, it often seems to be more satirical than serious). But the asides on the role of the media and the conservatism of the Establishment are slyly amusing, while the script (penned by John C. Balderston, Sidney Gilliat and L. Du Garde Peach) allows Karloff, Calthrop, Cellier and Loder to indulge in plenty of camply sinister diablerie.

Whereas Karloff consistently found better material in Hollywood, singer Paul Robeson was largely disbarred from fulfilling his screen potential because of the prejudicial attitude of the studios (and their white audiences in the Deep South) towards African-American performers. Consequently, he chose to live in London and followed stage triumphs in Show Boat (1928) and Othello (1930) with the role of tribal chief Bosambo in Zoltan Korda's adaptation of Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River (1935), which he had been reassured would present an authentic picture of colonial African society. However, during the editing process, the emphasis was shifted on to the `white man's burden' aspect of the scenario and Robeson agreed to headline Thornton Freeland's Jericho (1937) to counter the Korda film's shameful racial stereotypes.

Medical student Paul Robeson is bound for Europe on an American troop ship during the Great War when he so impresses Captain Henry Wilcoxon with a morale-boosting rendition of a song entitled `My Way' that he is promoted to corporal. However, during a U-boat attack, Robeson fights with Sergeant Rufus Fennell in order to open a door to save his comrades. But Fennell strikes his head and dies and Robeson is court-martialled, in spite of Wilcoxon's efforts to persuade Major James Carew to be lenient on account of his heroism.

On Christmas Eve, Robeson steals a gun and escapes in the guise of a French-speaking African and crosses the Mediterranean in a small boat with American adventurer Wallace Ford. However, Wilcoxon is charged with colluding in his flight and he languishes in a military jail while Robeson earns the gratitude of Tuareg chief John Laurie by healing his leg and becomes his son-in-law after marrying Princess Kouka. Over the next five years, Robeson brings peace to the region and develops trade links with other tribes. But when a newsreel crew films the annual salt caravan, the newly released Wilcoxon sees Robeson and vows to have his revenge.

Having informed Carew of his determination to clear his name, he flies out to North Africa. However, he is taken aback by the warmth of Robeson's greeting and is deeply impressed by the impact he has had in improving the lot of his people. Unfortunately, Kouka suspects that Wilcoxon still means to harm her husband and begins to hatch a plan to kill him. But, after Robeson gets him on a plane back to Blighty, he can only watch in dismay as it crashes in the desert.

Such was Robeson's clout on this picture that he had the script changed to prevent his character from joining Wilcoxon on the fateful flight and perishing in a bid to protect him in the wilderness. He certainly cuts an imposing figure and makes the most of his frequent opportunities to sing. But, while this was Robeson's favourite of his own films, it has dated considerably and its worthiness often feels over-earnest and forced.

In anticipating the likes of Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957), the military justice sequences are fascinating. But the scenes in which the educated American brings civilisation to the nomadic tribes are more than a little patronising, with the result that the evident good intentions are somewhat compromised. Wilcoxon and Ford provide sterling support, but this is indisputably a Robeson vehicle and he can be forgiven for ensuring that this rare black screen hero was almost superhuman in his mien and accomplishment.

The mood lightens markedly for Irene (1940), Herbert Wilcox's take on the musical by Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy that had broken all Broadway records in notching up 670 performances in the early 1920s. Such was the popularity of the show (which was based on James Montgomery's play, Irene O'Dare) that Alfred E. Green had filmed it as a silent with the ever-elegant Colleen Moore in 1926. But this was the first sound version and it confirmed the status of Anna Neagle as Britain's leading screen actress.

Irish upholsterer's assistant Anna Neagle catches the eye of playboy Ray Milland while she is measuring chairs at the Long Island estate of socialite Billie Burke. He is so enchanted that he purchases a fashion house and installs Roland Young as manager to ensure Neagle's success as a model. However, her meteoric rise serves only to attract the enmity of her fellow models and the unwanted attentions of Burke's roguish son, Alan Marshal.

During a ball at Burke's mansion, Neagle has an accident with her dress and hurriedly slips on a blue gown that had once belonged to her mother. As a consequence, she is mistaken for the niece of an ennobled Irish dowager and Young decides to capitalise on the confusion by setting her up in a Park Avenue apartment and draping her in jewellery each time Marshal escorts her for a night on the town.

The ruse doesn't last long, however, as gossip columnist Louis Jean Heydt exposes that Neagle is merely the granddaughter of down-to-earth May Robson and she is less than amused to discover that Milland has been pulling the strings behind the scenes. In order to teach him a lesson, she agrees to marry Marshal. But he realises he is in love with heiress Marsha Hunt and Neagle finds it in her heart to forgive Milland when he finally makes his feelings known.

Escaping the privations and perils of wartime Britain to shoot this charming slice of escapism for RKO, Wilcox found himself able to call on the talents of screenwriter Alice Duer Miller, cinematographer Russell Metty and music director Anthony Collins, whose scoring earned him an Oscar nomination. But, while translated numbers like `Castle of Dreams', `Worthy of You', `You've Got Me Out on a Limb' and `There's Something in the Air' were all engaging, it was `Alice Blue Gown' that caught the imagination, as Wilcox slipped into Technicolor to enhance its dreamy fantasy and audiences were most taken with Neagle's red hair.

The by-playing of the cast is admirable, with Arthur Treacher stealing scenes as the sniffy English butler and Roland Young trotting out his patented genial bumbler routine. Milland and Marshal are suitably dashing, while Robson and Burke demonstrate how to make the most of what are essentially extended cameos. There is even a chance to catch a glimpse of the 17 year-old Dorothy Dandridge in the cod newsreel. But Neagle more than holds her own and if she lacks the common touch that someone like Ginger Rogers might have brought to the title role, she more than compensates with an guilessness that the brassy Ginger could never quite nail.

In all, Neagle and Wilcox made 32 features together. But, while she excelled in the biopics Odette (1950) and The Lady With the Lamp (1951), Neagle's star had begun to fade by the time the British industry began the struggle with television that resulted in it churning out dozens of cheap crime pictures to try and make double bills sound a better prospect than a night at home with a tiny flickering box in the corner of the living room. Many of these monochrome Bs were of very poor quality. But it has become too easy to dismiss them all as calamitous quickies and labels like Renown, Spirit and Simply Media to a fine job in dusting them off for a new generation of movie lovers to discover.

Scripted by AW Rawlinson from a play by Moie Charles, Scarlet Thread (1951) was Lewis Gilbert's fourth directorial assignment. Revealing the extent to which class operates even within the criminal fraternity, it presents a noirish snapshot of a country about to emerge from its period of postwar austerity and start seeking some of the benefits of a hard-won victory. Crisply photographed by the dependable Geoffrey Faithfull, it also makes telling contrasts between the bright lights of London and the sleepy quads of Cambridge.

Petty crook Laurence Harvey refuses to play by the rules. He takes his chances as a pickpocket and can only aspire to the high life that gentleman thief Sydney Tafler routinely enjoys. However, when Harvey saves Tafler's life, he feels sufficiently indebted to take him under his wing and, in spite of the misgivings of trusted getaway driver Harry Fowler, he decides to involve him in a jewel robbery in Cambridge.

Naturally, the heist goes wrong and an innocent bystander is shot. Forced to escape on foot, Harvey and Tafler take refuge in one of the colleges. But the cocky Harvey cannot lie low in the Master's garden and attracts the attention of his sheltered daughter, Kathleen Byron. She is bored with the hushed halls of academe and finds Harvey and the slang he has picked up from countless American crime flicks dangerously enticing. But, just as she is ready to succumb to his coarse charm, she receives the news that her father has been murdered and Tafler realises they are in grave danger.

Taking its title from the Song of Solomon and boasting a spiritedly blowsy turn as a good-time girl from Dora Bryan (who, like Gilbert, is still going strong), this may not always be the subtlest thriller. The underrated Tafler (who was often typecast as cheeky Cockney types) also rises to the challenge of playing a toff, but once he and Harvey become entangled in Byron's web, the action becomes frustratingly verbose. Nevertheless, Harvey seethes with sneering attitude and there is a palpable charge in his saucy exchanges with Byron, who taps into the vein of repressed sensuality that she had kept so tormentingly in check in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's wildly melodramatic Black Narcissus (1947).

Another fast-talking chancer comes to the fore in Bob McNaught's Grand National Night (1953), which also has its origins on the stage in a play by the husband-and-wife team of Campbell and Dorothy Christie that was also responsible for Carrington VC and Someone at the Door, as well as the screenplay for the Bernard Knowles melodrama, Jassy (1947). Most notable for the terse exchanges between chief suspect Nigel Patrick and self-assured inspector Michael Hordern, this was one of the first features edited by Anne V. Coates, who is still working in her mid-80s and was responsible for cutting David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980), as well as Chris Weitz's take on Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (2007).

Horse trainer Nigel Patrick is becoming tired of spoilt wife Moira Lister's drunken antics and, when one of his fillies goes into premature labour, he is grateful for the excuse to remain at the stables with vet Noel Purcell and kindly neighbour Beatrice Campbell rather than travel to Aintree, where his hotly tipped mount is running in the world's most famous steeplechase. Starmist triumphs and Lister gets plastered with her sister Betty Ann Davies and louche ligger Colin Gordon. However, when gadabout Leslie Mitchell pays too much attention to Maria Mercedes in a nightclub, Lister storms out and speeds home to Chillington in his car, even though she had been banned from driving since accidentally killing a man two years earlier.

Much changed since his release from a Japanese POW camp, Patrick is annoyed to be woken by his wife's return and an argument breaks out in the drawing room. Lister grabs a letter opener and falls in the ensuing struggle and lies motionless after landing on the blade. Patrick bundles her body into Mitchell's car and butler Gibb McLaughlin dutifully tidies away when he finds signs of a disturbance and the patio doors gaping open.

Next morning, Patrick invites Campbell to lunch and she is surprised to find Lister absent, as she had spoken to her on the phone the previous night. Her suspicions grow when Davies arrives worrying about her sister's whereabouts and Gordon insists that he saw Patrick catching the last train home from Lime Street station. But it's only when local sergeant Barry MacKay breaks the news that Lister has been found dead in Mitchell's motor without her shoes that Campbell really begins to worry about her beloved.

Shortly afterwards, Scotland Yard inspector Michael Hordern arrives to question the assembled and he alarms Patrick by revealing that he knows the car had returned to the area because of the amount of petrol it had consumed since being filled in Liverpool. He also puts McLaughlin on edge by inquiring about the lost shoes and a missing compact from Lister's handbag. But, even though Patrick explains to Campbell that he was trying to take his injured wife to the hospital when a fog descended and he panicked after she died while he was waiting for it to lift, he knows it is only a matter of time before Hordern makes an arrest. Or is it?

Viewers will be divided over whether the climactic twist is fiendishly neat or glibly contrived. But, even though the central mystery is solved around the halfway mark, McNaught manages to maintain the suspense in the grand old Hitchcockian manner by making the audience wait to see if the wronged man will be punished for something he didn't do. He fails to summon up much dread and Patrick makes a rather unsympathetic anti-hero. But the supporting cast is admirable, with Gordon supplying some much-needed comic relief and McLaughlin bringing a sense of dignified menace to the role of the faithful retainer determined to ensure that his master is not punished for the longed-for disappearance of his wholly unsuitable spouse.

Films like Grand National Night had a considerable influence on the police procedurals that became a staple of British television schedules and it would not have been surprising had a similar storyline cropped up in Dixon of Dock Green, Z Cars or The Bill. But, even though it was released in the same year, it is almost impossible to see anybody creating a drama in the mould of Philip Leacock's The Kidnappers, especially in the current climate. Yet, despite being so tightly bound into the time and place of its setting (Nova Scotia in 1904), this is a film with a very modern resonance, as so many children crave the affection they cannot find at home and only a flint heart could not be moved by the innocence that prompts the young protagonists to make such a potentially fatal miscalculation.

When their mother dies, eight year-old Jon Whiteley and his younger brother Vincent Winter are sent to Canada to live with grandparents Duncan Macrae and Jean Anderson and their aunt, Adrienne Corri. They learn from local doctor Theodore Bikel that their father perished in the Boer War and that the grieving Macrae has developed such an irrational hatred of Dutch neighbour Francis De Wolfe that he now patrols a disputed hillock between their farms with his rifle.

Soon after starting school, Whiteley gets into a fight with De Wolfe's son (Christopher Beeny) and becomes so miserable with his new existence that he joins Winter in pleading with Macrae for a pet dog. Their disappointment at his refusal doesn't last long, however, as Whitely finds a baby and suggests that they build a den to take care of it. Winter readily agrees and they steal some milk to feed the child he suggests they should name `Rover'. But Whiteley insists it should be called `Edward' after the king (even though it is actually a girl - a detail that makes their folly all the more endearing).

It isn't long before the secret is out, however, and the infant is returned to De Wolfe and his distraught wife. Yet the local authorities still insist on charging Whiteley with malicious abduction and it is only when De Wolfe intervenes that he is spared a spell in a reformatory. Macrae ends the feud in gratitude and returns to the cabin having sold his best boots to buy his grandsons a puppy.

Whitely and Winter received juvenile Oscars for their achingly sincere performances in this provocative treatise on life in the Dominions at the start of the last century, which could also serve as a plea for greater tolerance in accepting the immigrants arriving in Britain in the early 1950s. Screenwriter Neil Paterson certainly pulls no punches in exploring the concept of empire and the sacrifices and injustices involved in coercing disparate peoples into forging a common bond. However, this will not be the theme that most intrigues today's audiences and it is very much to the credit of Paterson and documentary veteran Leacock that the emphasis is firmly placed on authenticity rather than sentiment.

The adult cast is superb, with the rankling between Macrae and De Wolfe being poignantly contrasted with the burgeoning romance between Bikel and Corri. But it is Whiteley, Winter and Beeny (who would go on to play Edward in Upstairs, Downstairs) who give the film its soul and the sequence in which Macrae nearly kills the older boys in a fit of pique is as chilling as the rugged landscape that is captured so uncompromisingly by cinematographer Eric Cross.

Back in the land of the bargain B, it's two for the price of one as Renown issues Vernon Sewell's Radio Cab Murder (1954) on the same disc as Montgomery Tully's Out of the Fog. Neither is particularly memorable, but they are no worse than the majority of American second features that have gone on to become cult favourites on the kind of cable and satellite stations we simply don't have in this country (why is there still no BFI TV? Tsk, tsk.) Moreover, as the terrestrial channels have long since stopped showing this kind of fare (even though they once used to crop up frequently in the graveyard slots on the commercial networks), this is now the only way for students of bygone indigenous cinema to see the movies that laid the bedrock for the BritCrime boom that is only now starting to wane after a decade of consistent success.

Determined to go straight after another stretch inside for safecracking, Jimmy Hanley gets a job as a driver with Charles Morgan's taxi firm. All goes well for a while and he even starts dating perky radio dispatcher Lana Morris. But shortly after he tails a couple of fleeing crooks in a cab, a letter arrives demanding that Morgan fires Hanley as he is a danger to the public. Seemingly furious at getting his cards, Hanley asks his contacts about landing a job with a bigwig known only as `The Governor'. However, rather than resorting to old ways, Hanley has cut a deal with Inspector Bruce Beeby to infiltrate the gang and bring them to book.

Although his reputation goes before him, Sonia Holm is suspicious of Hanley from the get-go and suggests they feed him some false information to check whether he is a snitch. Naturally, he blunders into the trap and he is taken to the waterfront to be locked in a giant freezer at the boss's secret lair in an ice-cream warehouse. But Morris isn't prepared to lose her man so easily and she corrals the cabbies into launching a rescue operation.

There's something of the Children's Film Foundation about the way in which the baddies are vanquished and something even more decidedly Scooby-Doo about the unmasking of the criminal mastermind. Nonetheless, this is a lively caper that makes decent use of the London locations (photographed with typical aplomb by Geoffrey Faithfull) and finds plenty to do for such stalwart supporting players as Sam Kydd, Jack Allen, Elizabeth Seal and Frank Thornton, as well as Holm, Morris and the ever-watchable Hanley.

Another ex-con struggling to remain on the straight and narrow finds himself a prime suspect when a serial killer begins bumping off blondes under a full moon in Out of the Fog (which is also known by its American release title, Fog For a Killer). Sadly, David Sumner lacks Jimmy Hanley's genial presence and his surly display makes it difficult to root for him after he takes a room at James Hayter's halfway house and lands a job driving for a furniture company.

Indeed, even when Superintendant John Arnatt begins leaning on him after another young woman is savagely butchered on a stretch of wasteland nicknamed `the flats', viewers will struggle to feel much pity for Sumner as probation officer Susan Travers is used as bait to lure the culprit into making a mistake. As one would expect, the best laid plans prove to be deeply flawed and Sumner has to overcome his prejudices to deliver Travers from the maniac's clutches. But few will be surprised by the revelation of his identity or left on the edge of their seat by the last reel chase.

The producers at Eternal Films deserve credit for assembling an ensemble including such reliable performers as Arnatt, Hayter, Michael Ripper, George Woodbridge, Olga Lindo, Jack Watson and Renée Houston. But Maurice J. Wilson's screenplay is woefully short on incident and originality and, although Tully directs steadily, he is unable to inject any suspense into the lacklustre proceedings.

Vastly superior is Val Guest's Hell Is a City (1960), a gripping Hammer policier that has rather laboriously been claimed as a missing piece in the social realist jigsaw because of its Mancunian setting and gritty approach to both the criminal underworld and the everyday problems of getting by in a northern city struggling to come to terms with the passing of its industrial heyday and the concomitant socio-economic certainties. The combination of Robert Jones's veracious production design, Arthur Grant's sombre photography and Stanley Black's edgy score certainly raise this several notches above the average crime drama of the period. But the complexities of a plot derived from Maurice Proctor's novel leave too little room for Guest to explore the issues that dominated the core pictures in the so-called `kitchen sink' canon.

When John Crawford escapes from prison, Inspector Stanley Baker pays a visit to his favourite watering hole, which is run by known associate George A. Cooper. He insists he no longer has anything to do with the fugitive, but no sooner has Baker departed than barmaid Vanda Godsell gets a call from her ex-boyfriend saying he will see her soon. While Baker is at home arguing with wife Maxine Audley about her refusal to start a family, Crawford summons underlings Charles Morgan, Joby Blanshard and Charles Houston and outlines a plan to rob bookmaker Donald Pleasence.

Despite cornering clerk Lois Daine in a narrow alley, the gang fails to separate her from the takings pouch and Crawford beats her to death before dumping her body on the moors. A passing motorist alerts the police and Baker and his new assistant Geoffrey Frederick are quickly convinced that Crawford is responsible. Thus, when the prison guard he assaulted during his flight dies from his injuries, Baker is given permission to track Crawford down and he hopes that the green malachite powder on the stolen banknotes will aid his cause.

Before he was busted by Baker a decade earlier, Crawford had hidden the proceeds of a jewellery theft in a bureau in Joseph Tomelty's furniture store. However, when he goes to recover his parcel, he falls foul of the old man's deaf granddaughter, Sarah Branch, who forces him to flea by smashing a window and Frederick develops an instant crush while taking her statement. Baker is also being distracted by the flirtatious Godsell, but he reminds her that he is a married man and urges her to be careful.

In fact, it's another of Crawford's old flames who is in danger, as Billie Whitelaw agrees to shelter him in the attic of the home she shares with unsuspecting husband, Donald Pleasence. However, when he investigates noises in the night, Pleasence is set upon and Baker bullies Whitelaw into revealing what she knows about Craword and his plans. The net closes more tightly when Houston uses marked notes to bet on an illegal pitch and toss game that Cooper organises on the moors and Baker finally gets his man after a showdown on Tomelty's roof.

It all sounds like an episode of The Sweeney and Guest keeps the action as brisk and abrasive as possible. Wayward accents hamper his efforts to root Baker and Crawford's animosity in a childhood rivalry, but the leads are uncompromisingly pugnacious, with the former's steel being tempered by his desire to become a father and the latter's vicious assaults on Daine and Pleasence easily exceeding the brutality that Hammer used to allow in its horror films. The supporting performances are equally strong, with even Warren Mitchell's cameo as a twitchy travelling salesman leaving its mark.

There is evidence to bolster the `angry young man' case, as Guest and Grant disapprovingly scour Manchester's inner-city slums and soulless post-blitz modernity. Moreover, Baker presents a new breed of world-weary copper, whose closing stroll through the streets as the neon starts to flicker could easily have come from Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1958) or Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). But most of the characters are stock generic types and the inclusion of a deaf beauty owes more to pulp fiction than life. Nevertheless, this is a gutsy snapshot of a society in transition and it is fascinating to realise that it was released in the same year as Gerald Thomas's Carry On Constable.

As with many sitcom spin-offs, a dash of Carry On sauce is readily in evidence in Ronnie Baxter's For the Love of Ada (1972). However, in keeping with many more of its ilk, this affable, but wholly unremarkable feature feels like a trio of half-hour episodes clumsily strung together around a core story that would have been old hat when Fred Evans was making his Pimple comedies in the 1910s.

The original series ran on ITV for 26 episodes between May 1970 and September 1971 before signing off with a festive special on Boxing Day. All of the principals return here, with Irene Handl and Wilfred Pickles reprising the roles of the Cockney widow and the Yorkshire gravedigger who buried her husband trying to rub along under the watchful gaze of her daughter, Barbara Mitchell, and ignorant son-in-law, Jack Smethurst.

By now, a year has passed since Handl and Pickles tied the knot and Mitchell is trying to arrange a surprise party, while coping with the demands of new motherhood. However, Pickles is preoccupied with retrieving the locket that he has bought as an anniversary present and which Handl has donated to vicar John Boxer's jumble sale in a moth-eaten old jacket. However,, while Pickles is out, news reaches Handl that he has been seriously injured in an accident and much toing and froing has to occur before the old pair can sidle off for a romantic celebration of their own before dropping into the local Masonic Hall for Mitchell's knees-up.

With small-screen dependables like Arthur English, Hilda Braid and Duggie Brown fleshing out the cast, this is played with more enthusiasm than Baxter can muster from the director's chair. He treats himself to a couple of location shots that he embellishes with snatches of Gilbert O'Sullivan's theme tune. But, otherwise, he sticks to the tele-basics of keeping the number of shots down to a minimum and concentrating on the dialogue rather than the ambience. The plot is utterly forgettable. But it's always a treat to watch Handl in action and the relish with which she mangles her malapropisms is a joy to behold.

And so to Kingston Bagpuize for Tortoise in Love.

Much has happened since writer-director Guy Browning first persuaded his neighbours to join him in making a movie. Meetings were held to raise funds and apportion roles before and behind the camera, while the title changed several times before, during and after the shoot. Post-production took a little longer than expected, but the villagers eventually got to enjoy their night at a West End premiere and, following a pleasingly successful stint in cinemas up and down the country, it has finally arrived on DVD.

Costing a mere £180,000 and pitched somewhere between a British screen comedy of the post-Ealing era and a Richard Curtis romcom, it can hardly be called ground-breaking. Indeed, with its regrettable reliance on gender stereotypes, it could easily be branded chauvinist. But this is hardly a picture that sets out to cause offence. For the most part, it is highly enjoyable and also laudably polished for what is essentially a community project. The humour may occasionally be no more sophisticated than that of an amdram pantomime, but it is none the worse for its celebration of country living and its optimistic embrace of happy ever afters.

When young Tom Yates returns from boarding school to the Oxfordshire manor house owned by his flint-hearted banker father Duncan Armitage, he is relieved to find himself entrusted for the summer to the care of dotty grandmother Lesley Staples and Polish au pair Alice Zawadzki. However, he is far more intrigued by gardener Mike Kemp's new assistant, Tom Mitchelson, who shares his interest in aeroplanes and is himself back in Kingston Bagpuize after three years in London dabbling in microbiology.

Naturally, Mitchelson falls headlong at first sight for the blonde, violin-playing Zawadzki and the feeling is entirely mutual. However, he is far too bashful to make a move and his tongue-tied gauchness makes him an easy target for Sharon Gavin, Anna Scott and Kate Terence, who work in the Kingston House tea rooms. Their own love lives are anything but beds of roses, however, with Terence becoming increasingly frustrated at being married to farmer Des Brittain and Gavin having just splashed out on a boob job to try and attract a likely lad. Even scullery lackey Philip Herbert has a tough time under the thumb of housekeeper Sue Parker-Nutley, while church warden Richard Ward, publican Neal Higham, father of four Ivan Kaye and newlywed Kev Lewis-Wood are all equally in thrall to respective spouses Ingrid Evans, Petina Hapgood, Tracy Bargate and Jo Lewis-Wood. Indeed, only ex-gamekeeper Tony Long seems to be master in his own household and that's largely because he has been ostracised since accidentally shooting Yates's grandfather several years earlier.

Mitchelson is not the only moping bachelor, however, as divorcé Steven Elder is also on the lookout for love. But, even though he is an army veteran, he can't quite get round to asking Gavin for a date. Consequently, whether they're either unable to talk to women or can no longer abide listening to them, several of the local menfolk sign up to participate in a pantomime horse race at the annual Kingston fete. The event itself is something of a farce (and merely slows the pace of the plot without adding too much side-splitting mirth) and the summer ends with Zawadzki heading home without Mitchelson managing more than the occasional mumbled greeting, let alone an eloquent declaration of passion.

She returns the following year, but Mitchelson is no more venturesome and takes refuge in the `Husband Obedience Trials' that are the centrepiece of the forthcoming fete. However, this unfortunate farrago (which is about as socially enlightened as a Donald McGill postcard from the 1950s) and an accompanying fly past by the Red Arrows serve only to delay the denouement, which sees Mitchelson asking Gavin out in revenge for Elder propositioning Zawadzki and it's only at the end of a disastrous double date that true love finally finds a way.

Although he is new to films, Guy Browning is renowned for the incisive wit of his bestselling books Never Hit a Jellyfish With a Spade and Never Push When It Says Pull and the BBC radio sitcom, Weak at the Top (2005-06), which recalled his previous existence in advertising. It's slightly surprising, therefore, to see him plump for such broad humour in his directorial debut. Even more dismaying is the antediluvian nature of some of the female caricatures (although several secondary males are also pretty grotesque). Yet this is a surprisingly easy movie to like, with Mitchelson possessing the looks and charm of a young Hugh Grant, Zawadzki radiating geniality and Gavin bristling with confidence in displaying the timing evidently honed in a comedy partnership with her older sister Lauretta.

Moreover, it's pleasing to see a film being made about an aspect of British society other than council estate struggle, gangland London and the culture of drugs and violence attendant on the rap scene. But what most impresses about Tortoise in Love is not the fact that it's the product of neighbours rallying round a dream (although this greatly enhances its appeal), but that it overcomes its restrictions and shortcomings to make evocative use of its splendid setting and to entertain an audience that is far too often forgotten by film-makers clutching lottery handouts and film council grants.