Man of the Moment
Whitehall has never seen the likes !
Norman Wisdom’s third film for the Rank organisation is a mediocre shift back to his usual straightforward slapstick that made him a comic superstar for the best part of 50 years, which was absent in his previous venture. ‘Man of the Moment’ is a surreal fast-paced satire where Norman plays an inconsequential basement file clerk for the Civil Service. Purely by co-incidence (as everyone above him is either sick or absent), he finds himself on a Diplomatic Mission to a Geneva conference where the World’s top Ambassadorial minds are trying to negotiate with the Queen of a tiny fictional island in the Pacific Ocean, Tawaki. All of the formal Diplomatic negotiations fail and the Queen will not talk with anyone, except for Norman, who without even knowing or really understanding why, suddenly becomes the ‘Man of the Moment’.
With the odd exception of Dr Strangelove or In the Loop, I’m not usually one for political satires. Even the incredibly silly, slapstick or subtle ones because I quite frankly find them boring, especially after they’ve aged over a few years. They become nothing more than a snapshot as to what filmmakers were thinking about in that specific era. Although, in my estimation, Man of the Moment does suffer from this affliction, it also has a refreshingly unpredictable yet rushed ending. However, it’s still an enjoyable film of it’s time, which features a couple of lovely cheerful numbers by Wisdom, along with his typically hilarious moments. It is nice to see that most of the main cast from Norman’s first feature film for Rank, Trouble in Store, are also playing lead roles, such as Jerry Desmonde and Lana Morris. Yet again Norman upsets Jerry Desmonde, who plays his traditional stuck up, bad tempered boss. Several other famous British character actors appear in the film such as Belinda Lee who a plays French film star, who Norman is head over heels with, before eventually falling for Lana Morris’s character of Penny. Charles Hawtry of Carry-on fame also makes an appearance towards the end of the film as a theatre director.
5/10 – Calum Roberts
