Bees in Paradise

Bees in Paradise is directed by Val Guest who also co-writes the screenplay with Marriott Edgar. It stars Arthur Askey, Anne Shelton, Peter Graves, Ronald Shiner and Jean Kent. Music is by Louis Levy and cinematography by Phil Grindrod. Plot finds Askey as one of four airmen who crash on a mysterious island known as Paradise. The island is ruled by women and men are regarded as disposable commodities.

Lightweight in all the right areas, Val Guest's musical comedy is ultimately what it was meant to be, a mood lifter during the war. The gender politics are played nicely for laughs, the majority of the songs are foot tapping delights (notably "I'm a Wolf on My Mother's Side") and Askey turns in one of his better comedic performances. There's of course the usual quota of malarkey, which if the picture was longer than the 72 minutes would stretch the enjoyment, while one elongated section featuring Askey in drag doesn't hit the right notes. But otherwise this is a fun and frothy way to spend just over an hour and ten minutes. 7/10

Bees in Paradise concerns a female society on an uncharted island in the Atlantic Ocean. The Queen (Antoinette Cellier), Rouana (Anne Shelton), and Jani (Jean Kent) run things. Men are scarce because after they marry, the bride and groom have a 60 day honeymoon, and then the man has to fling himself off a cliff and commit suicide).

The women are delighted when a British plane crashes and the four men on board look like sure matrimonial partners. The crewmen are Arthur Tucker (Arthur Askey), Peter Lovell (Peter Graves), Ronald Wild (Ronald Shiner), and Max Adler (Max Bacon). The men like the all female society, but aren't fans of the male's bee-like death after the honeymoon.

This film is a lot of fun with Arthur Askey at his best. The funniest sequence is when he tries to referee a rugby game between two rugged female teams. It's laughing out loud funny. The singing and dancing are well done and are highly entertaining.

Although not listed in her credits, 19-year old Patricia Owens appears in Bees in Paradise. She is one of the guards who carries Arthur around in his chair. She is also the one who selects Max as hers, telling the other girls, "I don't want any arguments. He's mine!" Later, Patricia is one the four girls playing pool. She even sinks a ball in the side pocket. Watch for her if you see this movie.

Bees in Paradise is a very pleasant way to spend 72 minutes. Arthur Askey was always funny and this one will leave you smiling.

The team from Miss London Ltd are back - Arthur Askey as the "four foot nothing" hero, Anne Shelton as the saucy seductress, Peter Graves as the token handsome guy, and Jean Kent as the sweet little thing, with Max Bacon and Ronald Shiner bringing up the rear.

Jean, Anne, and about 2000 other girls are the residents of "Paradise Island", a place which seems to worship bees, to the point of acting like them - women are queens, men are drones. And after marriage, the man is sacrificed two months after the honeymoon, as their tradition goes, either by jumping off a cliff, or sailing off into the ice. So when four pilots parachute out of their dying plane and land on this island, they're immediately in for it. Askey is immediately nabbed by Shelton - for the rest of the film her entourage follows him around with his own special rickshaw. But he's after Kent, who is herself after Graves. The men find out about the death tradition, and are anxious to flee the island, until Shelton marries Askey before he realises it (drinking wine together signifies the betrothal) and suddenly it's a matter of life or death that he escapes!

Movie starts off somewhat dodgy, leaving you thinking "what on EARTH is going on??" but stay with it, it's hilarious, and well worth seeing! There's plenty of songs, and more Bob Hope/Bing Crosby/Dorothy Lamour 'road' references than you can poke a stick at.

Arthur Askey and company ditch their RAF plane on a deserted island. Of course, it turns out to be inhabited by beautiful women who wear short skirts and break out in production numbers at odd moments.

Like SOME LIKE IT HOT, it's a burlesque sketch stretched into a movie, if nowhere near as adept. It does have a bit of "Road to..." zany charm, mostly because it never pretends to be any more than it is. It's a funny B movie, full of contemporary references, set quip and ridiculously huge sets.

Val Guest has a unique and witty sense of humour, which can be hilarious when used to good effect. Bees in Paradise begins promisingly, as most of his comedies do. The idea is a typical piece of Guestian idiocy - a tropical island is inhabited entirely by women; the only means for the women to reproduce is for them to marry shipwrecked sailors who turn up on the island. After the two month honeymoon period, the men are required by law to commit suicide. It's not the greatest of his ideas, but neither is it a bad one. At any rate, the story is a complete dud. Some men turn up on the island after their plane crashes, they are pursued by the eager women, each of whom wants to find a husband without having to wait for the next boatload (or planeload) of arrivals. The men are taken aback by the predatory nature of the women on the island, but one of them is tricked into getting married. Meanwhile, the pilot of the plane has fallen madly in love with a dissident dame who has begun to see the injustice of the island's anti-male laws, and he wants to take her back to England with him. A boring, vacuous and predictable story which requires some pretty excellent comedy to redeem it. Sadly, there is none. Apart from a few mildly amusing lines, including some cheeky cracks about Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, nothing in this film made me laugh.

To make matters worse, the film is punctuated by frequent and extremely forgettable songs, which don't even have decent dance scenes to accompany them. The songs seem to be nothing more than compensation for the fact that the film isn't funny, as well as a means of filling up time, since there is so little story development.

Furthermore, it's difficult to like the characters because they're hardly developed at all. Instead, the film takes the easy way out by using cliched characters that we've all seen a hundred times before - the short, bespectacled bachelor and the balding, accented middle-aged guy being two examples.

To give credit where it's due, the film is directed well by Val Guest in his usual fun and playful style, but this time the material is far too weak to make the film watchable. Watch his excellent 1944 comedy "Give us the Moon" to see what he's capable of when in his element, but don't waste your time with this.