The best Eric Sykes’s comedy movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Eric Sykes’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Eric Sykes.
The Liquidator
5.9/10
Spy spoof about Boysie Oakes, a British secret agent who specialises in Liquidating. In actual fact he contracts out the work and pretends it is was himself. This leads to complications.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes
7/10
In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley announces an air race and offers £10,000 to the first person who can fly across the English Channel. But one of the participants, Percy, plots to sabotage his competitor's planes. Will Percy triumph?
Monte Carlo or Bust!
6.1/10
Sequel to "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines". This time an international car rally from England to Monte Carlo provides the comedic farce.
Splitting Heirs
5.5/10
A member of the English upper class dies, leaving his estate and his business to an American, whom he thinks is his son who was lost as a baby and then found again. An Englishman who thinks he is an Indian comes to believe that he is actually the heir. He comes to hate the American who is his boss, his friend, and the man who has stolen the woman after whom he lusts.
The Plank
6.7/10
Classic British comedy, full of stars, about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion.
Heavens Above!
6.7/10
A naive but caring prison chaplain, who happens to have the same last name as an upper class cleric, is by mistake appointed as vicar to a small and prosperous country town. His belief in charity and forgiveness sets him at odds with the conservative and narrow-minded locals, and he soon creates social ructions by appointing a black dustman as his churchwarden, taking in a gypsy family, and persuading the local landowner to provide free food for the church to distribute free to the people of the town. When the congregation leaders realise the mistake and call for the Church of England to remove him, this turns out to be a very, very difficult issue - until one clergyman realises that a British project to send a man into space is in need of an astronaut...
The Bargee
6.2/10
After a lock-keeper entrusts his daughter to a canal Casanova, he is shocked to learn that she is pregnant. He then refuses to open his locks - causing barges to pile up in every direction until the guilty party confesses.
The Plank
7.4/10
Classic short British comedy, full of stars, about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion. TV remake of the 1967 short.
Village of Daughters
5.5/10
A salesman from England is picked to select one girl in an Italian town who will become a bride for a native son.
Rotten to the Core
5.7/10
Rogues Jelly Knight, Scapa Flood, and Lennie the Dip leave prison expecting boss The Duke to have their stash ready to share out. Instead, Duke's girl Sara gives them the news Duke is dead and the money gone on nursing care. They soon discover that Duke is actually running Hope Springs Nature Clinic with the help of most of the local villains. Very strange - and the nearby army camp and Sara's encouragement of Lieutenant Vine would seem to be no coincidence either. Written by Jeremy Perkins
One Way Pendulum
5.8/10
A study of absurdity in a suburban family: father rebuilds the Old Bailey in the living room, and the son teaches weighing machines to sing in the bathroom.
It's Your Move
7.1/10
A silent slapstick comedy depicting the travails of young couple moving into a new home, who hire an accident-prone firm of house removers, headed by Sykes. It features an all-star cast including Tommy Cooper, Bernard Cribbins, Jimmy Edwards, Irene Handl, Bob Todd and Andrew Sachs.
Rhubarb Rhubarb
6.5/10
During a game of golf between a police inspector and a vicar the inspector cheats by having a constable move his ball into favourable positions and the vicar's into hazardous ones. when the vicar discovers this he prays for divine intervention which turns the tables.
If You Go Down in the Woods Today
5.7/10
A Boy Scout troupe led by their scoutmaster (Sykes) is on a field trip to a seemingly-peaceful English woodland. However, the woods are actually teeming with strange characters, some of whom turn out to be disguised police officers and others criminals. The police are searching for £2,000,000 in stolen banknotes and hope that the criminals will lead them to them. The criminals, on the other hand, are aware that the police are looking for them and doing their best to avoid betraying the location of their stash.
Watch Your Stern
5.7/10
When the details of a secret torpedo are destroyed by an incompetent seaman, the crew of the ship rally round, when the Admiral needs the plans to show to a visiting scientist.
Very Important Person
6.7/10
Comedy set in World War Two, starring James Robertson-Justice and Leslie Phillips. Sir Ernest Pease (Robertson-Justice) is a self-important scientist who is sent undercover on a bombing mission to monitor the effectiveness of his latest invention, a new-fangled radar. When the plane is attacked, he parachutes to safety - only to be sent to a POW camp, where he takes on the alias of Lieutenant Farrow. There, the somewhat happy-go-lucky bunch of Brits suspect their acerbic new fellow prisoner of being a spy, and all sorts of culture clashes and misunderstandings ensue.
The Boys in Blue
4.5/10
Sgt. Cannon (Tommy Cannon) and PC Ball (Bobby Ball) run the police station in the quiet town of Little Botham. When the station is threatened with closure due to a lack of crime, they decide to invent some crimes to justify their existence. When they try to steal a painting from a local rich businessman (Roy Kinnear), they accidently stumble across a gang of real art thieves who have just stolen £1 million worth of paintings. It is up to the two bungling cops to stop them escaping with their haul.
The Big Freeze
6.1/10
A silent comedy. Two accident-prone plumbers go to fix the plumbing at a home for retired gentle-folk on the coldest day of the year in Finland. Everything that can go wrong for these plumbers goes wrong.
Rhubarb
5.7/10
A Police Inspector and a vicar play a round of golf. The Inspector has a Constable help him to cheat, while the vicar has other ideas...
Mr. H Is Late
7.2/10
A team of inept undertakers attempt to get a coffin to a funeral on time. An undertaker is in charge of moving a coffin from a home to the church. The home is on the 26th floor of a skyscraper; the stairs are narrow; the lift is small and prone to stop working. Chaos ensues.
