Postman's Knock

i am trying to find a DVD or VHS copy of Postman's Knock starring Spike Milligan. i have been looking for months with no luck. if anyone has one or knows where i could get one sent to Australia please let me know. i have not seen the movie as yet as i can't find a copy. but my father in law is a massive fan of Spike Milligan and he has wanted this movie to complete his collection but we cannot seem to find it anywhere.i am willing to pay for the copy and freight to Australia of course. i would just really appreciate if someone who may know how i can get a copy could let me know. i have tried various different sites, but this one seems to be the better of all the others.

The mark of the greatest films is that they create a world of their own. "Postman's Knock" is absolutely unlike any other film you've ever seen, and obeys its own rules of plot, character and comedy. The late Spike Milligan was a fitful genius who could, occasionally, lapse into becoming an undisciplined bore, but here he is absolutely at the top of his form.

He plays a country postman seconded, in error it transpires (a conceit not dissimilar to that in 1963's "Heaven's Above!"), to the big city. The conventional comedic take on this situation is to exploit the bumpkin's lack of sophistication in unfamiliar surroundings, but "Postman's Knock" completely inverts this; the bumpkin is shown to be vastly superior to the urban fools with whom he comes into enforced contact. Milligan even gets the girl!

The late 50s and early 60s were, in hindsight, a golden age for British comedy. It's amazing how, at the turn of the decade, a number of highly individual, indeed quietly experimental, comedies were made: e.g. "School For Scoundrels", "Bottoms Up!" and "Postman's Knock". (Later on in the 60s there were "A Jolly Bad Fellow", "You Must Be Joking!" and the amazing "Rotten To The Core".) These were not part of some franchise, however enjoyable (e.g. the St Trinians films, the Carry-Ons, etc), but apparently unrepeatable one-offs.

I'm surprised, and not a little disappointed, at the low rating this film has so far received from IMDb participants. It deserves to be cherished for its unique brilliance (I'd rather watch its opening credits than most complete films of the last thirty years), and I give it 10/10!

This film was recently shown on Turner Classic Movies. It is a small, fairly tame comedy about an unfailingly good-natured, utterly artless and guileless country postman, Harold Petts (Spike Milligan), who nevertheless possesses a natural intelligence and apparently superhuman mail-sorting skills. He is transferred from his village in the country to London, where in the course of the film he thwarts---almost by accident---two robberies, outperforms the automatic sorting equipment installed by the postal branch where he works, and gets the girl (Barbara Shelley). This is a low-budget affair, rather drab-looking, and of course quite dated. It is of interest primarily because it is one of those rare opportunities here in the States to see the late, great Spike Milligan, who is virtually unknown on the American side of the Atlantic. This must have been bread-and-butter work for Milligan, who keeps his manic tendencies more or less under control in this film, although he allows himself some impish smiles from time to time. If you didn't know who Milligan was, you'd never guess he was the mad, eccentric genius who created The Goon Show for the BBC and who became as well known for his mental instability as for his comic invention. The great actor John Wood, who achieved much greater stardom on stage than on screen, where he was mainly a serviceable supporting actor, plays Police Constable Woods, who winds up on the receiving end of most of the mishaps on screen. I remember him best as Professor Falken in "WarGames." You will also recognize Barbara Shelley, whose natural sexiness was never really exploited the way it would be today, from "Village of the Damned" and the Hammer film originally titled "Quatermass and the Pit," but invariably shown here in the USA as "Five Million Years to Earth." An incidental note: Milligan couldn't resist writing a Goon Show that parodied the Quatermass films, called "Quatermass O.B.E.", where of course Ned Seagoon (played by Harry Secombe) was the Quatermass character. It even used an eerie electronic sound effect borrowed from one of the films.

One day I hope they will show this movie again. I saw it in 1964 or so on a weekday afternoon, so the movie was probably badly cut up for commercials. I recall that Milligan (in one sequence) demonstrates that he can sort and dispense letters in the post office better than the machine that they have purchased. And I remember the actors planning the mail robbery. But that said is about it. Although some of the posters here speak highly of the movie, I find it interesting that I can barely recall it. I think that is suggestive that it is not as good as has been suggested. But I can tell if they will show it again, so that I can watch it again.

Just watched this film after taping it in the middle of the night on TCM. I am 57 years old and have never seen this film before. I am surprised it hasn't to my knowledge been shown during the daytime after all these years. Adults and children alike would love this film. It contains many visual jokes and is truly entertaining. With a lot of the rubbish around nowadays on the screen, this deserves 10 out of 10. It shows what a genius Spike Milligan was. It was great to see so many character actors in their prime e.g. Bob Todd, Arthur Mullard, Archie Duncan, Lance Percival and Warren Mitchell, etc. Please check out this fine film and you will find you can watch it again and again.