The Plank (1979 TV Movie) User Reviews

A tribute to old-style slapstick

[ingemar-4 · 7/10 · 15 June 2008]

The Plank is a straight-forward slapstick short. To me, it summarizes the old-style slapstick of the old silent movies in a single movie. This means that some of the humor feels pretty outdated, like getting a cake in the face. But that is as it should in this movie. It is still very enjoyable. It has a wonderfully minimalistic theme, the transportation of a plank, executed with nice under-acting by Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe.

So don't expect the British humor from the same times by Monty Python/Feldman/Allen/Goodies/Atkinson. Watch it as a tribute to the old classics. Sykes and Lowe do it the old way, and they do it very well. I laugh at the references to the origins as much as the jokes as such. I could live without the laughter track though.

Apart from Sykes and Lowe, the cliché old-times policeman (Jimmy Edwards) is wonderful, with mustache and all! Also, some scenes driving around with the plank are very good. As so often, the more subtle the humor, the better, and that is the case here too. The "delivery man" (Charlie Drake) is usually too crude (but necessary to deliver that side on the classic humor) as well as the painter, while the photographer, the milkman and the van drivers are funnier.

Chaplin and Laurel&Hardy are (mostly) funny even today, and this movie builds on their work. It is the 20's in color.

A Good Film but not as good as the original

[robertshingo · 8/10 · 4 September 2017]

I watched the 1967 version of The Plank and then later on I watched the 1979 version of the Plank. For some reason some of the funny scenes from the 1967 version have been cut out of the 1979 version to make it a half an hour programme instead of the original's 50 minutes. I like the idea of having lots of well known comedy faces in it such as Brian Murphy, Reg Varney, Charles Hawtrey, Harry H Corbett and Joanna Lumley, but the comedic effect is not as good as it was in the original 1967 version. Shame that Eric Sykes replaced Tommy Cooper with Arthur Lowe, but Lowe still does a good job. I also feel that it is a bit strained in a way as there are some silly moments, where for example, the workmen (Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe) leave their car in the way of the exit, but it is a wide exit with tons of room to get through! Same happens a few minutes later when Brian Murphy's truck won't start. There is plenty of room to pass the truck but the drivers of the cars keep blowing their horns! OVERALL VERDICT: A good, entertaining film, not as good as the original, as some of the best moments (such as the UDC wet cement section, or the police station ending) are not in. Not as good as the original but still worth a watch.

Adventures of a piece of wood

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 28 November 2009]

In 1967, Eric Sykes wrote, directed, and starred in 'The Plank', a short, silent comedy film about two incompetent builders ( Eric and Tommy Cooper ) who are short of a plank of wood for the house they are currently working on. Climbing into their battered old car, they head for the timber yard. With the plank safely secured to the roof ( so they think ), they set off, but lose it before too long. The plank causes mayhem whenever it goes.

Twelve years later, Eric remade the film for Thames Television. Arthur Lowe replaced Cooper ( who was reunited with Sykes in 1982's 'Its Your Move' ). Right from the word go when Eric puts his jacket on a non-existent nail on the wall, you know you're in Jacques Tati territory; a delivery man ( Charlie Drake ) is knocked onto the cream cake he is carrying; a painter ( Bernard Cribbins ) is distracted and daubs red paint onto his boss' ( Lionel Blair ) face; a sexy hitch-hiker ( Joanna Lumley ) is picked up by a lorry driver ( Harry H.Corbett ) and when the plank strikes her on the back of the head she falls onto his lap; a man drinking a pint of beer ( Henry Cooper ) loses his glass ( and temper ) when the plank knocks it into a window-cleaner's ( Reg Varney ) bucket. And so on.

Eric admitted later he never wrote an actual script for 'The Plank'. It adhered to the old 'cowboy movie' principle of an idea on a sheet of paper. He said: "I don't write yards and yards of funny dialogue, because you can't film dialogue.". The producer, Dennis Kirkland, was used to silent comedy - he worked on many of Benny Hill's shows for Thames.

I actually prefer this to the original. It is shorter and snappier, and Alan Braden's music is splendid. Amongst the other guests are Brian Murphy, Charles Hawtrey, Kate O'Mara, Jimmy Edwards ( reprising his role as a policeman on a bike ), racing driver James Hunt, Frankie Howerd ( as a photographer ), and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

Two versions were screened on I.T.V. - one with a laugh-track, and one without. The one on D.V.D. is the latter. Eric went on to make three more silent half-hours in similar vein - the aforementioned 'Its Your Move' ( probably the best of the lot ), 'Rhubarb Rhubarb' ( another cinema remake ), and 'Mr.H. Is Late', and all are good clean fun.

Funniest moment - the plank slipping under Constable Edwards' bottom and propelling his bike along the road at great speed, and into the river. Frank Spencer could not have done it better.

The Plank

[Mr-Impossible · 9/10 · 19 October 2008]

Once in every lifetime a show comes along like The Plank.

A remake of the 1967 version, this again, has a large collection of the funniest people of their day.

A story of a wayward plank and who it meets on it's travels.

Watch it if you want to know what true comedy is...or should I say was.

Gone are the days of Fawlty Towers, Dad's Army and the Two Ronnies.

Comedy now is not the same. Watching The Plank transports the viewer back to the days of high comedy. Simple yet effective.

The universal language of laughter.

The Plank will forever live in history as a tribute to many who started TV comedy.

The plank

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 29 March 2020]

Another fine film about a plank. Probably a much better performance by this plank

Help

[colinedwards-24845 · 10/10 · 12 September 2017]

Does anyone know how or where to buy this movie. It is so much better than the original (1967) but has seemed to have been lost - would love to see it again. Arthur Lowe is the key character for me and his role in the opening scene sets the mood so well. Mind you Jimmy Edwards had had quite a few years to let his facial hair turn into white wilderness!!

I just don't get it, I'm afraid

[alice liddell · 5/10 · 1 March 2000]

The main appeal of this short is probably the cameos from a certain strata of 60s and 70s British comedy that support leads Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe - Lionel Blair, Harry H. Corbett, Bernard Cribbins, Frankie Howerd, Reg Varney, Joanna Lumley, the guy from GEORGE AND MILDRED etc. Unfortunately, (with the exception of the great Charles Hawtrey) this is the comedy against which I've always defined my own loves - e.g. MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, REGINALD PERRIN, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LIKELY LADS, FAWLTY TOWERS etc. - so there isn't much enjoyment for me here. But it's rare that popular TV stars experiment with the riches of short silent comedy, so I gave it a go.

The first barrier to pleasure is not the profusion of performers I have never found funny, but the aggressive laughter track stuck on, telling me how truly hilarious what I'm watching is, when it clearly, bewilderingly, isn't. The gags are so obvious, and are set up so far in advance, and are executed as precisely as you expected, that not only can you not understand why everybody's enjoying themselves; but you get the feeling that you are not watching a comedy, but a lecture in the mechanics of comedy theorems.

The plot concerns two builders, Sykes and Lowe, who are laying the wood foundations of a new house, only to find one plank stolen by children to make a see-saw. They head off to the plankyard (or whatever it's called) in their clapped out old car, and the rest of the film details their chaotic, socially disruptive, attempts to bring it back to the house.

There is some abstract pleasure in seeing a plot dominated not by bewildered comics, but a piece of wood, which probably dramatises some Marxist gubbins about the commodity fetish and the alienation of the worker from his labour. There is an intriguing contrast between the very British cast and their brand of saucy seaside humour, and the very abstract Anywhere-ville that frames their adventures, a new housing estate under construction and some generalsised suburbs.

This, and the pleasing, bouncy music, give the film a HULOT-esque feel, but there is none of Tati's complex struggle between individual and environment (or hilarity). This rush of new building and the profusion of labourers give some sense of 70s Britain, its anonymity and dehumanisation, while the ultimate circularity of the plot calls into question the very progress (eg economic) that allows the film's content.

While the leads are sympathetic in their passivity, the jokes and slapstick are so old, corny and uninventive, stolen from hundreds of better 20s comedies. Men get splattered by paint, hit by the plank, are run into a pond etc. The one genuinely funny sequence is when the great Wilfred Hyde-White tries to cross a busy road and his walking-stick is broken.

Walk the plank.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 5/10 · 2 December 2016]

With a poll coming up on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best movies of 1979,I started looking round for titles to view. Initially looking from its running time like an episode of Sykes,I was surprised to stumble on a short (almost) Silent movie,written/directed and starring Eric Sykes! Which led to me picking up the plank.

The plot:

As they get set to continue their work,two construction workers discover that one of their building planks has disappeared.Looking round for it,the workers discover that it has been taken by kids,who are now using it as a sea-saw.Not wanting to interrupt their play,the workers decide to just go and buy a new one,but soon find themselves on a sea-saw of chaos.

View on the film:

Bringing the movie out later in a "Silent" version,the TV cuts showing the pull between Silent cinema and TV Comedy that the film is stuck in.Offering slight whispers of Alan Braden's jazzy score,the playful mood is stamped on by an unrelenting fake laugh tracks,which yelps like a pack of dogs even during the set-up of gags. Deciding to go Silent due to hearing troubles,director Eric Sykes reveals a natural flare for Silent Comedy,with smooth tracking shots making the rubbery slap- stick Comedy hit its mark. Keeping the screenplay free and easy,Sykes packs the short running time with a cast of Comedy legends walking the plank from Harry H. Corbett to Diana Dors! Despite each just being given small roles,the cast make their sightings a delight to see,with Arthur Lowe being wonderfully stuffy as the fellow workman who walks the plank.

Left me underwhelmed

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 May 2017]

"The Plank" is a British live action short film from 1979 written by, directed by and starring Eric Sykes. It runs for slightly under half an hour and does not include any spoken language, which means that even if you aren't fluent in English or are even a deaf person, you will not need any subtitles to enjoy this one. Still, it is a bit of a challenge admittedly to enjoy it because I believe it was not really too funny to watch the misadventures of the protagonists here. I guess it all comes down to how much you like pantomime overall. Maybe this one here makes a better watch as well if you love the works of the silent film greats from the early 20th century. It is probably among the more known works by Sykes, but in terms of the script I can only hope it is not one of his best because I found it ultimately really forgettable and it does not get me in the mood at all to watch any of his other stuff. Gotta give it a thumbs-down, even if it is not a complete failure. Acting is somewhat decent I guess, but not good enough to make up for everything else. And it manages to drag a bit, which is certainly nothing to be proud of at this runtime. Watch something else instead.