Movies
Raising The Wind (Anglo Amalgamated 1961, Leslie Phillips, Sid James)
Raising The Wind, a winner from the Carry On stable, boasts a cast of familiar British comic actors and a surprisingly sharp screenplay by composer Bruce Montgomery, who wrote the music for many of the Carry On films.
Montgomery’s screenplay sensibly stuck to the successful formula established by the Carry On and Doctor film series, focusing on the comic adventures and misadventures of an assortment of impecunious music students working their way towards finals at a London Academy of Music under peppery conductor James Robertson Justice.
There was little straightforward plot; instead, Montgomery provided plenty of splendid comic situations which were played for all they were worth by director Gerald Thomas and his expert cast. Justice, sensibly making his conductor a variation on his celebrated surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt from the Doctor comedies, ‘bulldozes his way magnificently through the role,’ said Variety, and there was well-deserved praise for accomplished film farceurs Leslie Phillips, Kenneth Williams (notably in a hilarious scene in which his orchestra runs away with him), Liz Fraser, Sidney James, George Woodbrige and Jimmy Thompson.
US Title: Roommates
Writer: Bruce Montgomery Cinematography: Alan Hume Music: Bruce Montgomery Producer: Peter Rogers Director: Gerald Thomas
production details
UK | Anglo Amalgamated – GHW | 91 minutes | 1961
cast
Jim Dale as Phil
Kenneth Williams as Harold Chesney
Joan Hickson as Mrs. Bostwick
Liz Fraser as Miranda Kennaway
Victor Maddern as Removal Man
Sid James as Sid
Eric Barker as Dr. Morgan Rutherford
Peter Byrne as 1st Horn
Leslie Phillips as Mervyn Hughes
James Robertson Justice as Sir Benjamin Boyd
Esma Cannon as Mrs. Deevens
Geoffrey Keen as Sir John
Jill Ireland as Janet
Paul Massie as Malcolm Stewart
Jennifer Jayne as Jill Clemons
Jimmy Thompson as Alex Spendlove
Lance Percival as Harry
Ambrosine Phillpotts as Mrs. Featherstone
David Lodge as Cabbie