Time, Gentlemen, Please!

Your most tiresome fly in the ointment will be an Irish rebel.

Time, Gentlemen, Please! is now part of a collection of British comedies called the Long Lost Comedy Classics. A collection of films that disappeared off the radar but now having been re-found, have been transfered to DVD courtesy of Hollywood Classics LTD. Others in the collection are The Love Match, Orders Are Orders, Make Me An Offer, John & Julie and Miss Robin Hood.

The Prime Minister is due a celebration visit to the idyllic village of Little Hayhoe, where a Utopian state of employment exists on account of the very productive factory. However, there is one fly in the ointment, the local tramp, Dan Dance. A free spirited man, Dan likes to sleep out in the fields and booze in his ample free time. This is something of an embarrassment to the village dignitaries, who quickly hatch a plan that sees him become the sole resident of the antiquated almshouse. However, when the old reverend suddenly passes away, a new and more radical one takes his place. The reverend, upon reading of the ancient almshouse rule book, finds that Dan is entitled to considerable financial gain - financial gain that will turn Little Hayhoe upside down.

At the time of writing this review back in 2009, there were only two other reviews on IMDb, both of those users had rated this film as a 10/10 movie. I added myself to that number wholesale. Quite simply this is possibly the finest British comedy not to have come out of Ealing Studios or to have been written by the supreme Boulting brothers. Directed by Lewis Gilbert (Sink the Bismarck!), pic is adapted from an R.J. Minney (Carve Her Name with Pride) novel called "Nothing To Lose" and Produced by Herbert Mason out of Southall Studios.

So you have your quintessential English village setting with the usual array of quirky characters. The political types are as usual a shifty bunch, and the rest are happily going about their business accepting the normality of their safe...