The Spare Tyres

THE SPARE TYRES is another of those short comedies that came out in the late 1960s in the wake of THE PLANK. This one is very similar and involves star Terence Alexander attempting to dispose of a couple of spare tyres. His misadventures take him all over the place and involve various scrapes and slapstick hijinks that'll be familiar to anybody who grew up with the likes of SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM. I've always like Alexander as an actor and he does well with his exasperated performance here, while the short running time and focus on sight gags make this an enjoyable if somewhat predictable little outing.

Eric Sykes wrote the Sykes and a Plank for his BBC series in 1964. Then three years later he released th short film, The Plank.

In between this. Actor and writer Donald Churchill wrote the short film, The Spare Tyres.

Terence Alexander stars as Dennis Colville. He has moved in with his wife Audrey to their dream home. Only his wife has noticed two old tyres dumped in the garden.

She orders Dennis to get rid of them, even though he planned to play golf.

It is a struggle to get the tyres in his small sports cars. Immediately one of the tyre's rolls off and damages his neighbour's greenhouse.

More disaster ensues with his attempts to get rid of these tyres. The council tip refuses to accept the tyres.

There are some good set pieces here but to me it felt high contrived. Especially the council worker played by Frank Finlay who wants a form filled out.

I could never comprehend why Dennis went and retrieved the tyres several times when he should had just walked away.