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This is a Jam Handy car model rollout promo, dressed up a bit with a hammy plot about a man desperate to see the new Chevrolets. William Frawley at the time was about to embark on a new TV show, "My Three Sons," which was sponsored by Chevy, and graciously agreed to play the lead here, too, with Barbara Perry in support. Bill collected a fee as well, I suspect. Frawley by no means was too proud to appear in industrial films, but Fred MacMurray, the main star of "Sons," apparently stood on his dignity and declined this side project for the GM boys. Actually, the short is better than three stars, but I couldn't resist the play on words. For Chevy fanciers, there's a memorable scene of a convertible pulling a water skier through a moat.

"Under-appreciated" is probably the most over-used expression in user reviews, but it has to do duty again for this superb Ealing comedy, a classic fully on an equal plane with "The Lavender Hill Mob," "The Man in the White Suit," "Kind Hearts and Coronets," etc., etc. If only John Foster Dulles had taken this film's message to heart, the disaster of the American intervention in the Vietnam War might have been avoided altogether. The political satire deals with civil war in a distant and virtually forgotten former British territory into which ersatz diplomat Terry Thomas entangles the Foreign Office. Just one of the great gags involves dividing the troubled nation in half with a chalk line. The roster of great performers includes Peter Sellers and John Le Mesurier.

Paramount, which once was willing to give up everything connected to the TV show for a couple hundred thousand dollars, just a few short years later paid about $40 million for this picture. The script, unfortunately, let everybody down. It's basically a rehash of two of the TOS shows: "The Changeling" and "Metamorphosis," coupled with endless special effects. The studio even went to the lengths of hiring Robert Wise, the director of one of the greatest sci-fi pictures of all time, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," to take charge here, to no avail. It no doubt occurred to Wise to wonder why 136 minutes of Trek didn't equal 92 minutes of Day.