Down Among the Z Men

Down Among the Z Men is a 1952 black-and-white British comedy film starring the Goons: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe.

Down Among the Z Men
Directed byMaclean Rogers
Produced byE. J. Fancey
Jimmy Grafton
Written byFrancis Charles
Jimmy Grafton
StarringPeter Sellers
Harry Secombe
Spike Milligan
Michael Bentine
Music byJack Jordan
CinematographyGeoffrey Faithfull
Edited byPeter Mayhew
Production
company
E.J. Fancey Productions
Distributed byNew Realm Pictures
Release date
  • October 1952 (1952-10)
Running time
75 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Harry Jones (Secombe) is a clerk in Mr Crab's general mercantile store and an amateur actor in community theatre, where he is currently playing a Scotland Yard inspector, "Batts of the Yard". When the absentminded Professor Osrick Purehart (Bentine) leaves a secret military formula in the store, mayhem ensues as two suspicious secret agents (actually enemy spies), who have been shadowing the professor, question Harry regarding the professor, none of them realising that Harry now has the formula in his possession.

Convinced by the two spies to follow the professor, Harry goes to an Army post, Camp Warwell, where he is mistakenly enlisted in the Z Men, ostensibly an elite unit guarding atomic secrets but in reality a ragtag group of reservists, retreads, and others of marginal (at best) competence. The spies kidnap an adjutant newly assigned to the camp and one of them then impersonates him to gain entry to Camp Warwell.

The post's commander, Colonel Bloodnok (Sellers), has been assigned for security purposes a supposed "daughter" (Carole Carr) who is actually a female MI5 operative. Harry soon becomes smitten with the "daughter", and they work together to foil an attempt by the secret agents to purloin Professor Purehart's formula.[1]

Title

National Service in Britain in the 1950s obliged all fit British men to serve in the military for two years, and thereafter three and a half years in the reserves. "Category Z" was one of the classes of reserve organization. During the Korean War there was much apprehension that, in order to supply enough troops, the government might remobilize "Z-men" who had been released after their two years in uniform.[2]

Production

Down Among the Z Men is the only film starring all four Goons; Bentine was absent from the 1951 Penny Points to Paradise. In the film, Bentine, Milligan and Sellers repeated their radio characters, whereas Secombe's Neddy Seagoon was replaced with a less-raucous Harry Jones.[3]

The film was shot at the Maida Vale Studios in London, with sets designed by the art director Don Russell. The production was shot over a two-week shooting schedule. Milligan, who wrote most of the radio scripts for the Goons, had no role creating in the film’s screenplay. Bentine would later tell an interviewer that the film's lack of financing required director Maclean Rogers to only permit one take per scene. Rogers, however, incorporated two dance numbers into the film featuring showgirls as female soldiers practising for a talent show.[4]

Release

Down Among the Z Men was not a commercial success in Great Britain. Since the Goons were unknown in the United States at the time, there was no theatrical release to the American market. Years later, after Sellers became a major film star, bootleg 16mm prints of the film began to turn up in the US, sometimes under the new title The Goon Show Movie.[4]

Cast
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References
  1. Time Out London review
  2. Peter Hennessy, Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties (Penguin, 2007) p. 79.
  3. Channel 4 film review
  4. Film Threat review Archived 25 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine
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