It's a Grand Life

I didn't understand half of the actors' lines. Subtitles would have helped.

'It's a Grand Life' marks the screen swansong of Frank Randle who is still pretty light on his feet and doesn't look a day older than when he first started (not that he probably ever looked young in the first place).

Returning to the sort of nonsense Our Frank was making ten years earlier the old codger is back in uniform (queue the usual jokes about Randle's sergeant major).

But at least the camera occasionally leaves the studio and it certainly benefits from frequent exteriors and blonde bombshell Diana Dors and Jennifer Jayne in uniforms make attractive attractive additions to the usual formula.

This turned out to be the final film featuring the great northern comic actor, Frank Randle. As a swansong it's not at all bad, though it does have scenes that linger too long, and where the humour is a little too forced. However, some of the slapstick scenes are still genuinely funny, especially the one where Frank Randle has the new army recruits doing a childlike dance, with their rifles held aloft! Diana Dors, along with Jennifer Jayne, provides the glamour interest, and there are likable performances from the rest of the cast, including a cameo appearance by Winifred Atwell at the piano. A famous wrestler, from that era, Jack Pye also appears in funny wrestling interlude with Frank Randle. The same Jack Pye was still taking on opponents in the ring whilst in his 60's!!! The film does tend to go on too long, and would have been better with tighter editing. Also John Blythe (as Diana Dors' fiancé) must be the oldest looking 23 year old ever!! A nice nostalgic film for fans of the genre.

It's an interesting example of how to make a film on a low budget. All the music is from pre-existing music libraries. All the major comedy sequences are filmed in very long takes, and have every indication of hardly being scripted at all, just blocked out and leaving Randle and his experienced team to improvise. The plot is much the same as all the other Randle films - set in the Army (an excuse for cheeking senior officers and the sergeant), and involving a younger well-off recruit whose home they end up in. In the end sequence here Randle adopts a kilt and a dubious Scots accent for no apparent reason.

It's interesting to note that Winifred Atwell plays everything in key C, unlike most jazz-type pianists who tend to use b or E flat. The 'historical' piano she uses at the end if of course an ordinary piano in disguise, with one string on everyh note detuned slightly to produce the 'honky tonk' effect she was famous for employing. (Side note - originally 'honky tonk' meant brothel, something everyone had forgotten by then.)

Fantastic film, I last saw this in 1987. Where the hell can I buy a copy on video? Frank Randle is superb as a shifty private in the army,his delivery of one liners are side splitting and I can remember them as though I have just watched the film.