Expert: Barbara L. Baker - 3/5/2005

Question
Dear Barbara,

I am trying to find out the title of a British Comedy Film which, I believe, dates from the first half of the 1960s. It was filmed in colour, and I first saw it at the cinema as we had no TV until 1967. Everyone I speak to at work and at home remembers the scene that I do, but none remembers the actors or the title!

In the memorable scene, the bowler hat of an official touring a food factory falls onto a conveyor belt, which is carrying small cakes.   A machine covers the cakes in white icing and places one cherry on the top of each. The bowler is taken through the machine and emerges covered in icing, but with FOUR evenly spaced cherries due to its much larger size!

I would be delighted if you could provide any information, as it is never shown on British TV, and I would like to buy a copy for home viewing.
My wife thinks Ian Carmichael may have been in it, but I am not certain.

Very many thanks,

James


Answer
Dear James:  I wanted to do a followup to thank you for your kind words of praise, even though I wasn't able to answer your question.  I get frustrated when I can't find a solution,so I did continue to look at some other resources (in print), but still came up empty.

However, I do have a suggestion, if you live near London or visit it. You might check out the BFI library there if you haven't already.  Although their website didn't provide an answer, the library itself is fairly extensive, and I found the librarians helpful when I did some research there many years ago.

Good luck in eventually finding an answer!

Dear James:  Using a variety of resources over the past couple of days, I've been trying to find out an answer for you, but I keep hitting dead ends. I've reviewed every comedy starring Ian Carmichael, as well as the Carry On films, films from Ealing, and Norman Pitkin films.  I've also looked at other 1960s British comedy, both film and TV.  Most of the titles I found that seemed promising were black and white films.  I then limited my search to color films from about 1957 to mid 1960s, but the plot descriptions I was able to access had nothing about this apparently memorable scene. I tried all kinds of permutations of bowler hat, cakes with white icing and cherries, conveyor belts, food factory, etc. with British comedy films, and came up with nothing.  So either this scene isn't that important to the plot, or I haven't located the title yet.

Can you recall ANY thing else about the film?  The main plot events would really help, as would any other actor (e.g. Terry-Thomas was on numerous lists, along with Peter Sellers, etc.)

I will tell you that many of the comedies I've reviewed over the past couple of days are not available on home video, either in the U.K. or the U.S.  So even if I can find the title, that is no guarantee you can locate a copy for yourself.

Sorry I can't be of more help at this time.  If you have more information, I can try again.