Skywatch

I've just watched this film on the excellent British TV channel Talking Pictures.

Perhaps its best feature is the cast, almost all of whom I recognised, with several being on their way to greater things. Dick Emery has a few brief scenes as a driver, and it was interesting to see Benny Hill in a few non-comedic scenes depicting various emotions - sympathy, irritation, brotherly protectiveness.

His double-act on stage with Tommy Steele was wince-provoking, though I suppose it typified 1940s' entertainment. I couldn't make out the point of Sheila Hancock's terrible singing - it was incredibly bad.

The stage origins of the film are very obvious.

Others have queried the opening and closing scenes of village cricket matches before and after the war. I suppose they could have been meant to portray the quintessential English life that Britain sort to protect, but perhaps this is a subtlety beyond the modest aspirations of this film.

Wikipedia tells us that Tommy Steele deferred £7,500 of his fee, which perhaps is why he was allowed to escape a military haircut.

I'm puzzled as to why the IMDB lists the cast as, for example, "Ian Carmichael ... Lt. Ogleby (as Lt. Ian Carmichael)".

When this film was made war films were very popular at the box office.Privates On Parade was the first film to poke fun at the army followed by Carry On Sergeant,and contemporaneously with this film Very Important Person.This film betrays its stage origins by spending far too long in the confines of the squad hut.A good cast is really not given enough comedy situations to handle.the tragedy and drama don't mix well with the comedy.There is a rather artificial beginning and end which is most unsatisfactory.Ian Carmichaels character is strangely written and portrayed.he treats his men as errant children rather than men.It is little surprise that Lewis Gilbert does not mention this film in his autobiog.It is clearly a film that he would prefer to forget.

LIGHT UP THE SKY! is one of those British WW2 comedies that acted as precursors to DAD'S ARMY and at times the similarities between the two productions are remarkable. This film's plot sees a constantly exasperated Ian Carmichael in charge of a searchlight squad whose job is to literally light up the sky whenever an enemy plane approaches. It sounds like a relatively straightforward job but of course in a comedy like this almost everything goes wrong.

Given the limited nature of the men's mission, a lot of this film is padded out with endless comedy scenes and character work. Some characters are homesick, others are in love, and the arguments are endless. Sadly, this didn't make very satisfying viewing for me, even though the cast is exemplary, featuring a mix of straight and comic actors. Victor Maddern is the depressed corporal, Tommy Steele and Johnny Briggs the fresh recruits, and the reliable Sydney Tafler one of the men. Benny Hill stands out as a soldier with a stand-up routine. There are also cameos from Dick Emery, Sheila Hancock, and Cardew Robinson.

I found Carmichael a bit of a distraction in this film as it looks like he's wearing false eyebrows, although I could be wrong. The bookend scenes in which he breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer directly are fun. LIGHT UP THE SKY! is an odd mix of character drama and humour, and the tragic moments of the story sit uncomfortably with the belly laughs elsewhere. I've seen better British war comedies from the era, for example CARRY ON SERGEANT.

When I was 8 my mother took me to see this as Tommy Steele was a big star to us kids . Everyone was singing ' Little White Bull' . I remember I enjoyed it especially when the German bombers appear . Benny Hill is his usual self . Seeing it now brings back memories . It's still a pretty decent film

Somewhere in Europe, during the Second World War, a group of young men make up a Searchlight Squad. If an adventure is days of boredom interrupted by short bouts of terror, this is an adventure.... but for most of it they spend their time bickering, picking up women, and worrying about what's for dinner.

It's a comedian's show, with Ian Carmichael, Tommy Steele and Benny Hill at the top of the cast list, yet they are all tamping down their performances. If you've ever observed a comic actor giving a serious performance only to be surprised and impressed, you shouldn't be. As Edmund Kean said on his deathbed, dying is easy; it's comedy that's hard. Yet this quasi-service comedy tries to alternate the comedy with the difficulties of actual war, and doesn't really manage the first half of the remit. The actors step on the punchlines, deliberately.... but the result is 75 minutes of boredom, and 15 minutes of terror.