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best movie i've ever seen.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is easy to be view Ealing comedies as some kind of comedy gold if you just watch the best of their output.However films like these give a more rounded view of Ealing Films a satirical misfire that misses its target by a mile.Stanley Holloway plays a departed drunken actor who takes a knock and meets Lucifer (also Stanley Holloway) down below and he gets send back to earth to spread the marvels of the television set which in time only causes misery.Television ownership took off with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Rising television viewers also had an impact on cinema audiences and the theatre as well with variety taking a big hit.We see old Mr Pedelty who is given a television set as a retirement present from his firm. He enjoys watching television and soon invites friends and neighbours round, throwing parties which soon gets out of hand and leaving him in debt for all the drinks and food he bought. Even the friendship he has made are shallow, people only wanted to know him because he had a TV set.He sells the TV set it to a newly married couple, the Norton's in the upstairs flat and pretty soon they have the same problems especially as he needs to study for his pharmacy exams and gets no peace and quiet. As Lucifer remarks, that TV is 'so much more effective than the old fashioned lodger' in splitting up relationships.Knowing the television set causes trouble he then gives it to his envious and petty former colleague, Hector at the pharmacy who becomes obsessed with the singer who performs a nightly show on television. The effect is to actually make him happier and better to go along with until her show gets cancelled.The episodic film starts of wickedly enough but becomes mundane and tedious very quickly. After all it seems to be a film more afraid of new technology which was to become a rival. Ealing Films eventually sold its studio to the BBC.

Interesting curio from Ealing Studios. Based on a play by Arnold Ridley ( better known as 'Private Godfrey' from 'Dad's Army' ), 'Meet Mr.Lucifer' is a whimsical fantasy warning of the potential dangers of television. In 1953, few people in Britain had sets, but its popularity was on the rise, and film makers such as Michael Balcon were worried enough to make a movie of this kind. Stanley Holloway is 'Sam Hollingsworth', a drunken actor reduced to playing 'The Devil' in a tatty pantomime version of 'Robinson Crusoe', and even that is doing poor trade as audiences are staying at home and watching the goggle box.After a few drinks during the interval, Sam goes back on stage, only to be knocked unconscious as he tries to use the trapdoor. He imagines he is in Hell itself, where the Devil - also played by Holloway - claims that the wheel and the telephone were both inventions of his to make everyone's lives miserable, and the television is his latest idea. But it is not doing the job quick enough, so Sam is recruited as Satan's helper.We then follow the lives of a group of people as a television set changes their lives for the worse. First up is 'Mr.Pedelty' ( Joseph Tomelty ) who gets a set as a retirement gift. He becomes obsessed by the thing, watching anything and everything. When there is a dancing programme on, he invites people in off the street and gives them free drinks ( all obtained on credit from his local pub ). As the debts mount, he decides he has had enough and so bequeathes it to a young couple ( Jack Watling and Peggy Cummins ). He is studying to become a chemist, and her television viewing habits spoil his concentration. To save their relationship, they pass the set on to Hector McPhee ( Gordon Jackson ), who becomes infatuated by a beautiful singer ( Kay Kendall ) known only as 'The Lonely Hearts Girl'...It is not the programmes that come under attack, but the medium itself. Its power as a force for good is barely mentioned, making this a bit one-sided. My biggest complaint is that there is too little of Stanley Holloway. The film is only really engaging when he is around. Also, the satire - if that's the right word - could have been stronger. I suppose television had not been around long enough for a major assault on the medium to be justifiable. Fun cameos from Ian Carmichael and Joan Sims, plus celebrities of the time such as Gilbert Harding and MacDonald Hobley. Eric Rogers - of 'Carry On' fame - did the music, and some of it was reused in 'Carry On Spying' ( 1964 ). Just before the end credits roll, the film takes a pot-shot at 3-D movies!

This anti-television vehicle commences its tirade most promisingly. The characters are introduced in capital style, while the proposition that TV is an instrument of the devil will fall on many a sympathetic clerical ear. Unfortunately, the producer has obviously blown most of his budget on the earlier scenes, and then spent his reserves on the concluding sequence in which a myriad number of workers in an enormous office are employed sending out lonely heart letters.The rest of the action, alas, wallows in tedious additional dialogue and small-budget clichés which are now and again relieved by the welcome entrance of Stanley Holloway.All the same, the film does present some worthwhile ideas. True, the conclusion seems like an arbitrary appendage to the main plot, but the real problem is that none of the three stories actually do justice to their fascinating characters.All the players are excellent. Stanley Holloway, Joseph Tomelty and Peggy Cummins never deliver less than top-notch performances, but the real surprises are a charismatic Jack Watling and normally dull Gordon Jackson (of all people) doing full justice to a character role.At times, Pelissier's direction seems admirably imaginative, especially in the panto sequences.

Another in a long line of great black and white British films of the 1950's. When Mr Pedelty (Joseph Tomelty) leaves his firm, he is given a TV set as a retirement present. At first he enjoys all the attention from his neighbours,but soon the attraction wears off, and he sells it on to the young married couple (Jack Watling and Peggy Cummins) living in the flat above him. They soon encounter the same problems,and again the set is passed on to several different charatures all with the same results. A very enjoyable story with a strong cast including Kay Kendall, Barbara Murray, and as the pantomime devil Stanley Holloway.