Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
colinedwards-24845
Does anyone know how or where to buy this movie. It is so much better than the original (1967) but has seemed to have been lost - would love to see it again. Arthur Lowe is the key character for me and his role in the opening scene sets the mood so well. Mind you Jimmy Edwards had had quite a few years to let his facial hair turn into white wilderness!!
morrison-dylan-fan
With a poll coming up on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best movies of 1979,I started looking round for titles to view. Initially looking from its running time like an episode of Sykes,I was surprised to stumble on a short (almost) Silent movie,written/directed and starring Eric Sykes! Which led to me picking up the plank.The plot:As they get set to continue their work,two construction workers discover that one of their building planks has disappeared.Looking round for it,the workers discover that it has been taken by kids,who are now using it as a sea-saw.Not wanting to interrupt their play,the workers decide to just go and buy a new one,but soon find themselves on a sea-saw of chaos.View on the film:Bringing the movie out later in a "Silent" version,the TV cuts showing the pull between Silent cinema and TV Comedy that the film is stuck in.Offering slight whispers of Alan Braden's jazzy score,the playful mood is stamped on by an unrelenting fake laugh tracks,which yelps like a pack of dogs even during the set-up of gags. Deciding to go Silent due to hearing troubles,director Eric Sykes reveals a natural flare for Silent Comedy,with smooth tracking shots making the rubbery slap- stick Comedy hit its mark. Keeping the screenplay free and easy,Sykes packs the short running time with a cast of Comedy legends walking the plank from Harry H. Corbett to Diana Dors! Despite each just being given small roles,the cast make their sightings a delight to see,with Arthur Lowe being wonderfully stuffy as the fellow workman who walks the plank.
ShadeGrenade
In 1967, Eric Sykes wrote, directed, and starred in 'The Plank', a short, silent comedy film about two incompetent builders ( Eric and Tommy Cooper ) who are short of a plank of wood for the house they are currently working on. Climbing into their battered old car, they head for the timber yard. With the plank safely secured to the roof ( so they think ), they set off, but lose it before too long. The plank causes mayhem whenever it goes.Twelve years later, Eric remade the film for Thames Television. Arthur Lowe replaced Cooper ( who was reunited with Sykes in 1982's 'Its Your Move' ). Right from the word go when Eric puts his jacket on a non-existent nail on the wall, you know you're in Jacques Tati territory; a delivery man ( Charlie Drake ) is knocked onto the cream cake he is carrying; a painter ( Bernard Cribbins ) is distracted and daubs red paint onto his boss' ( Lionel Blair ) face; a sexy hitch-hiker ( Joanna Lumley ) is picked up by a lorry driver ( Harry H.Corbett ) and when the plank strikes her on the back of the head she falls onto his lap; a man drinking a pint of beer ( Henry Cooper ) loses his glass ( and temper ) when the plank knocks it into a window-cleaner's ( Reg Varney ) bucket. And so on.Eric admitted later he never wrote an actual script for 'The Plank'. It adhered to the old 'cowboy movie' principle of an idea on a sheet of paper. He said: "I don't write yards and yards of funny dialogue, because you can't film dialogue.". The producer, Dennis Kirkland, was used to silent comedy - he worked on many of Benny Hill's shows for Thames.I actually prefer this to the original. It is shorter and snappier, and Alan Braden's music is splendid. Amongst the other guests are Brian Murphy, Charles Hawtrey, Kate O'Mara, Jimmy Edwards ( reprising his role as a policeman on a bike ), racing driver James Hunt, Frankie Howerd ( as a photographer ), and Wilfrid Hyde-White.Two versions were screened on I.T.V. - one with a laugh-track, and one without. The one on D.V.D. is the latter. Eric went on to make three more silent half-hours in similar vein - the aforementioned 'Its Your Move' ( probably the best of the lot ), 'Rhubarb Rhubarb' ( another cinema remake ), and 'Mr.H. Is Late', and all are good clean fun.Funniest moment - the plank slipping under Constable Edwards' bottom and propelling his bike along the road at great speed, and into the river. Frank Spencer could not have done it better.
ingemar-4
The Plank is a straight-forward slapstick short. To me, it summarizes the old-style slapstick of the old silent movies in a single movie. This means that some of the humor feels pretty outdated, like getting a cake in the face. But that is as it should in this movie. It is still very enjoyable. It has a wonderfully minimalistic theme, the transportation of a plank, executed with nice under-acting by Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe.So don't expect the British humor from the same times by Monty Python/Feldman/Allen/Goodies/Atkinson. Watch it as a tribute to the old classics. Sykes and Lowe do it the old way, and they do it very well. I laugh at the references to the origins as much as the jokes as such. I could live without the laughter track though.Apart from Sykes and Lowe, the cliché old-times policeman (Jimmy Edwards) is wonderful, with mustache and all! Also, some scenes driving around with the plank are very good. As so often, the more subtle the humor, the better, and that is the case here too. The "delivery man" (Charlie Drake) is usually too crude (but necessary to deliver that side on the classic humor) as well as the painter, while the photographer, the milkman and the van drivers are funnier.Chaplin and Laurel&Hardy are (mostly) funny even today, and this movie builds on their work. It is the 20's in color.
