THE NAVY LARK

In 1959, a film was made due to the popularity of the radio series and was scripted by Sid Colin (who also, with Eric Sykes, scripted Educating Archie) and Laurie Wyman. The plot tied in with the early radio shows, and was based on an iIsland off the South coast of Britian, and had the occupants having a high old time and feathering their nests. Unfortunately, the Admiralty decide that the minesweeping unit are redundant and the crew decide they will have to do something in order not to lose their ‘cushy number’. Unfortunately, only Leslie Phillips made the transfer to the silver screen, and in all the film is a bit of a disappointment.

As far as I know this has never been made available on video, but does crop up in the TV schedules from time to time. The cast (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

WATCH YOUR STERN

In the following year there was another naval comedy though that is more in the spirit of the series called Watch Your Stern. You may be forgiven for thinking that this is a Carry On as the cast are familiar and so is the production team of Thomas and Rogers. Leslie Phillips also crops up in this film (but this is not surprising as he was also in Carry On Constable. but Kenneth Connor plays the central role. The basic plot is that of a top secret test on an acoustic torpedo which, when fired, misses the target raft, double backs on itself, and blows up the ship that fired it! An Admiralty scientist is sent to modify the torpedo, but to do this they need the plans, and out of the two copies there are of them, one is destroyed and the other lost. The crew then see their way to bluff the admiral with some phoney plans. This was available on video from Warner, but has now been deleted. The cast (in alphabetical order) are as follows: