Movies

Keep It Clean (1956) Hawk-nosed comic Ronald Shiner stars in this Britcom as a hustling ad-agency employee (this is not Madison Avenue, but a sort of hole in the wall operation) who is trying to scare up a wad of cash for his brother-in-law's robotic super-cleaning machine. It's all very complicated, and what was most suprising to me was how extremely fast everyone spoke and moved. (I have been listening to a BBC documentary series Laughter In The Air, on the history of BBC radio comedy, and learned that this sort of rapid-fire comedy only appeared on the air there after the introduction of American radio programs during the war.) There are a number of scenes of music/dance performances in a Burlesque theatre, which you ought to know by now is something I really like to see, and Joan Sims makes a brief but frighteningly sexy appearance. This film is also a manifestation of the British cultural fascination with window cleaning. One of George Formby's most popular songs was his 1936 hit "When I'm Cleaning Windows," Norman Wisdom is a window cleaner in Up In the World (1956), and Val Guest directed the smash hit film of Britain's sleazy '70s, Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974). Something in the national psyche seems every twenty years or so to find irresistable the hint of voyeurism combined with the comic potential of a man on a ladder with a bucket of water. This is not the best film on the subject, but I was glad to have an opportunity to see a film from the 2nd or 3rd string Nettlefold Studios (Walton-on-Thames). 4/10 This may be the most educational post ever to appear on this blog.