Du cognac pour Monsieur le Vicaire

The first of three aggressively light-hearted comedies attractively shot on location (this time it's the fictitious village of Brampton on the Kent coast) directed for Group Three by former documentarist John Eldridge before he died at the age of just 43.

Yet another British film of the period when postwar shortages invested smuggling with - as a judge dryly puts it - a "spurious aura of adventure and romance", the smuggler this time being a dashing young Kenneth More. But by far the most fascinating performance actually comes from Jean Lodge, plainly in reality haughty and high maintenance, but working jolly hard at being a jaunty good sport in the sort of role usually played by Dinah Sheridan.