Another film watched for the "House of Hammer" podcast and, alas, another comedy. I say "alas" as we've just been through two less than stellar comedies in the "Up The Creek" series. "I Only Arsked!" has a better pedigree, as it was based on popular TV series "The Army Game" but unfortunately it doesn't generate much better results.
Receiving a request to provide military support to a Middle Eastern country, ahead of a potential coup, they reluctantly send Major Upshott-Bagley (Geoffrey Sumner), his Corporal (Michael Medwin) and four hapless recruits. Already unsuited to the military, the soldiers struggle even more in the foreign climes and become more interested in King Fazim's (Marne Maitland) harem, than in saving his kingdom.
Comedy is perhaps the most 'of it's time' genre there is and again, I perhaps have to take some consideration to the fact that it's now 65 years later and I have no experience of "The Army Game", so don't go into the film with any in built goodwill, but again, I didn't enjoy the film. I'll accept that it's better than either of the two "Up The Creek" films because, at the very least, this does have jokes in it. To my ears they're often slow and obvious jokes, but the fact that they're there at least make this an improvement. I was confused as to why Bresslaw receives top billing. Admittedly he and Charles Hawtrey are the names in the cast that I knew before starting this Hammer run, so I can understand it in that sense. . . But both Hawtrey and Bresslaw are just two of the four soldiers and why any of them would receive top billing over the others is a bit of a mystery.
Better then, in comparison to the films of the last couple of weeks, but still not good.
