Penny Points to Paradise is a 1951 comedy feature film.[1] The film was the feature film debut of the stars of The Goon Show, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers.
Secombe plays the part of Harry Flakers, a man who has a big win on the football pools. He and his friend Spike Donnelly (Milligan) decide to go to the same shabby seaside boarding house that they have always patronised for their summer holiday, but this year all the other guests (including two young women out to marry money, a dodgy investment advisor and a master forger and assistant) are intent on taking the fortune off them in one way or another.
Ultimately the forgers manage to substitute fake five-pound notes for the real ones that Flakers keeps in his suitcase, but before they can abscond with the money one of the girls is given cash by Flakers to buy some cigarettes, and accused of passing false currency when the forgery is detected. A grand chase follows with half the characters pursuing the other half through a waxwork museum in which the true crooks have taken refuge. Justice is served when the chief forger boasts of his crime in front of what he thinks are two waxwork policemen, but who turn out to be real members of the force.
In the final scenes Harry and Spike marry the two women.
There are sequences featuring a night out at the theatre where a stage hypnotist mesmerises Flakers and the girl Christine into performing an operatic duet, he singing soprano and she baritone, and a scene in which Harry Secombe wordlessly mimes out an entire heart operation being carried out by a nervous surgeon.
The film was directed by Tony Young, who later produced The Telegoons for BBC Television.
Harry Secombe as Harry Flakers
Alfred Marks as Edward Haynes
Peter Sellers as The Major / Arnold Fringe
Paddie O’Neil as Christine Russell
Spike Milligan as Spike Donnelly
Bill Kerr as Digger Graves
Freddie Frinton as Drunk
Vicki Page as Sheila Gilroy
Joe Linnane as Policeman
Sam Kydd as Porter / Taxi Driver / Newsvendor
Runtime 1 hr 17 min (77 min)
55 min (recut)
Sound Mix Mono
Color Black and White
Aspect Ratio 1.37 : 1
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process Spherical
Printed Film Format 35 mm
source
Rubbish, but at least it's British rubbish!
Christine is hot!
I spent all these years thinking that this movie was a heap of old rubbish. I even believed the Goons when they said the same. No, no and NO again. This is a fun movie! A tribute to the Silents and the early days of cinema. Its style is about ten years behind, and that is ok. Spike is a great straight man, Peter is funny, but Harry is truly the star! Brilliant comic timing! It isn't Duck Soup, or Dr. Strangelove, and that is ok.
It is what it is: A funny little movie that was created with a pure heart and a love for the subject matter. Should not have been kept so sequestered.
Thank you! I really enjoyed that film.
love the Goons
Bill Kerr now all this movie needed to be complete is THE LAD !
The heading should say Goon Show or The Goons
WOW! Thanks for sharing this rare treat!
Yay Pete Sellers rules 🎉