The best Ian Wilson’s comedy movies
We present our ranking of the best Ian Wilson’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Ian Wilson.
The Million Pound Note
6.8/10
An impoverished American sailor is fortunate enough to be passing the house of two rich gentlemen who have conceived the crazy idea of distributing a note worth one million pounds. The sailor finds that whenever he tries to use the note to buy something, people treat him like a king and let him have whatever he likes for free. Ultimately, the money proves to be more troublesome than it is worth when it almost costs him his dignity and the woman he loves.
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.
Carry On Jack
5.8/10
Tenth entry in the Carry On series. Able seaman Poop-Decker (Bernard Cribbins) signs up for adventure on the high seas with the wicked Captain Fearless (Kenneth Williams). Those swabbing the decks include Juliet Mills, Charles Hawtrey and Donald Houston. The film was originally to be titled Up the Armada, but the British Board of Film Censors objected to such a rude title.
Value for Money
5.9/10
A wealthy young man (Gregson) from Yorkshire visits a London nightclub and meets a performer (Dors). She decides to take him for every penny he is worth, and he decides to let her.
Brothers in Law
6.4/10
Roger Thursby (Ian Carmichael) is an overly keen, newly-qualified barrister who rubs his fellow barristers up the wrong way. When he is thrown in at the deep-end, with a particularly hot-tempered judge (Miles Malleson) and tricky case, Thursby learns how to prove himself not only to the judge and fellow barristers but also to the public gallery.
Lucky Jim
6/10
Jim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with unexciting but neurotic Margaret Peel, a friend of the Professor's. All-in-all, the pub is the only friendly place to be. His misery is completed at a dreadful weekend gathering of the Welch clan by the arrival of son Bertrand. Not so much that Betrand is loud-mouthed and boorish - which he is - but that he has as companion Christine Callaghan, the sort of marvellous and unattainable woman Jim can only dream about.
Trottie True
5.7/10
Tottie True is a gay-90s British music-hall performer who has her sights set on moving from rags to riches, who loses her heart to the pure-and-true blue balloonist, Sid Skinner, but continues her upward search on improving her social status. She finally settles for Lord Landon Digby who has lots of assets and a very-stiff upper lip. She gets a lot of the latter and very little of the former, and decides Sid might have been a better choice.
My Learned Friend
7/10
An insane murderer is on the loose, and gunning for the men who put him away. Will Hay is on the list, and co-opts Claude Hulbert to try and stop him from meeting a grisly end.
Let George Do It!
6.4/10
Shortly after the start of World War II, a ukelele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken for a fellow British intelligence agent by a woman (Mary), and becomes involved in trying to defeat Nazi agents.
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
Quiet Wedding
6.7/10
A young couple become engaged, but enjoy a number of comedic aventures before their wedding day.
The Big Money
5.5/10
Petty thief Willie Frith steals a suitcase full of bank notes, only to find out that they have been given all the same serial number. But this is only the start of his troubles, now he has to find a way of changing the notes, so he can impress the barmaid of his local pub.
Meet Me Tonight
6.1/10
Meet Me Tonight was the American title for the British-filmed Tonight at 8:30, adapted from the Noel Coward stage production of the same name.
The Iron Maiden
6.4/10
The film follows Jack Hopkins (played by Michael Craig), an aircraft designer with a passion for traction engines. His boss (played by Cecil Parker) is eager to sell a new supersonic jet plane that Jack has designed to American millionaire Paul Fisher (Alan Hale, Jr.). The first encounter between Fisher and Jack goes badly, and tensions only heighten after Fisher's daughter Kathy (Anne Helm) damages Jack's prize traction engine "The Iron Maiden", rendering it impossible to drive solo. Jack is desperate to enter the annual Woburn Abbey steam rally with the machine, but his fireman is injured and unable to participate. When all seems lost the millionaire himself is won over by Jack's plight and joins him in driving the engine; the two soon become firm friends.
The Ugly Duckling
5.5/10
Henry Jekyll was always the outsider, a bungling and awkward buffoon, relegated to waiting for his invitation to participate in life that never arrived: until he discovers a medical formula developed by a dead uncle, which claimed to turn 'a man of timid disposition into a bold, fearless dragon'. Taking a draught of the elixir Henry is transformed into suave, sophisticated and highly desirable Teddy Hyde. Armed with his new persona, Teddy is ready to face the world; but is Henry ready for the consequences?
His Lordship
5.6/10
The commoner is a happy cockney plumber by the name of Bert Gibbs. Bert comes into contact with the celebrated Russian movie star Ilya Myona. Desperate for publicity and aware that nobility make for good copy, Ilya persuades Bert to pose as her fiancé (with the possibility of persuading him to go through with the marriage if need be). Things are complicated by a pair of anarchic Bolsheviks, one of whom has a daughter named Lenina who knows Bert from his plumber days and is quite in love with him.
The Love Test
5.8/10
Romance set in a chemical factory.
Miss Tulip Stays the Night
5.5/10
Gorgeous Kate Dax (Diana Dors) and her crime-writer husband, Andrew (Patrick Holt), investigate the murder of eccentric spinster Miss Tulip (Cicely Courtneidge) at a remote country cottage.
The Dummy Talks
5.1/10
A ventriloquist is murdered during a theatre variety performance. A dwarf goes undercover as the dummy...
The Demi-Paradise
6.2/10
Ivan Kouznetsoff, a Russian engineer, recounts during World War II his stay in England prior to the war working on a new propeller for ice-breaking ships. Naïve about British people and convinced by hearsay that they are shallow and hypocritical, Ivan is both bemused and amused by them. He is blunt in his opinions about Britons and at first this puts off his hosts, including the lovely Ann Tisdall, whose grandfather runs the shipbuilding firm that will make use of Ivan's propeller. The longer Ivan stays, however, the more he comes to understand the humor, warmth, strength, and conviction of the British people, and the more they come to see him as a friend rather than merely a suspicious Russian. As a romantic bond grows between Ivan and Ann, a cultural bond begins to grow as well, particularly as the war begins and Russia is attacked by Germany.
