Puckoon

Puckoon, the story of a small Irish town divided by the Partition of Ireland in 1924 - really divided, the border goes through the middle of it! The characters are wonderful - the village idiot, the poacher, the priest and the hero(?)Dan Madigan, who participates reluctantly in hare-brained schemes to smuggle explosives into the North and deceased Catholics from the now Protestant side of the churchyard back into the Catholic part. Spike Milligan really hit the nail on the head with this hilarious story - pointing up the ridiculousness of political partition by 1)making it so farcical and 2) making the authorities who try to enforce it look like idiots. I notice that the Norwegian reviewer thought it a waste of money - but perhaps this film has the sort of message that only the Brits and Irish would understand. 10/10

At last Puckoon has been made into a wonderful, mesmerizing film. This is a film that every Milligan fan will want to see many times, if just to catch everything that happens in each scene. The script has cleverly constructed in layers, the surface being the fast paced comedy and the deeper layers showing what happens to ordinary people, like the villagers of Puckoon, when their country is suddenly and arbitrarily divided

Saw the film at the closing gala of the Ealing Film Festival in West London(England). Enjoyed it immensely. Although the Crow & the Chinese Policeman don't appear, and Dan Milligan becomes Dan Madigan (played by Sean Hughes (I)). The interaction between Dan and the Author (Writer/Director) voiced/played by Lord Richard Attenborough, works very well.

The rumour is that Lord Attenborough and Elliott Gould (as Dr. Goldstein) appeared in the film for just a pint of beer.

Spike was shown the film, on video before he died and by all accounts enjoyed it immensely.

Spike Milligan was one of the funniest men I've ever seen, and a huge influence on my life.

This movie is limp and awful, and does his memory no credit. The script is cluttered and preserves too many lines from the book intact (the leg jokes here are incomprehensible). The actors' performances are uniformly ineffective, a great cast wasted, and the lead, Sean Hughes, delivers Milligan's belligerent hostilities in a plaintive whine, which misses the point completely.

The gentle pacing is a killer as well. Farce should accelerate towards the end. The Goon Shows often did, the novel "Puckoon" definitely did, but this film, if anything, slows down just when you want the various elements to smash together in a final climax.

Milligan narrated an abridged audio recording of "Puckoon" in 1980, with T.P. McKenna, Dermot Kelly, Norma Ronald and Jack Hobbs. Now, that's funny. Ten minutes of that is funnier than this whole film. I believe the LP was transferred to CD, but don't know if it's still in print.

There is a movie of "Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall" with Jim Dale and Arthur Lowe. It too is a godawful mess, but it's funnier than this thing.

It's possible that Milligan's spirit is too rambunctious for the screen. The other reviewers here are indulging in politeness and wishful thinking. This film fumbles virtually every opportunity and never misses a chance to disappoint.

This is a fantastic comedy and a 'must see' for fans of Milligan humour and Pythonesque comedy. The screenplay has adapted the story as close to Milligan's novel as can be, keeping all the characters and humour as Spike portrayed them. This is the comedy film of the century.