Joey Boy (film)

Joey Boy is a 1965 British comedy war film directed by Frank Launder and starring Harry H. Corbett, Stanley Baxter, Bill Fraser, Percy Herbert, Lance Percival, Reg Varney and Thorley Walters. It was based on the 1959 novel by Eddie Chapman.

Synopsis
After a gang of London Spivs are arrested for running an illegal gambling den during the Second World War they are offered a choice between prison and a tour of duty with the British Army putting their unique talents to work.

Cast

 * Harry H. Corbett as Joey Boy Thompson
 * Stanley Baxter as Benny 'The Kid' Lindowski
 * Bill Fraser as Sergeant Major Dobbs
 * Percy Herbert as Mad George Long
 * Lance Percival as Clarence Doubleday
 * Reg Varney as Rabbit Malone
 * Moira Lister as Lady Thameridge
 * Derek Nimmo as Lieutenant Hope
 * Thorley Walters as Colonel Grant
 * John Arnatt as Brigadier Charles Chapman
 * Eric Pohlmann as Antonio
 * John Phillips as Inspector Morgan
 * Lloyd Lamble as Sir John Averycorn
 * Edward Chapman as Tom Hobson
 * Basil Dignam as General
 * Vicki Woolf as Gina

Production
British Lion had been owned by the Conservative government since December 1963. In 1964 the government had it denationalised. Among the films released by British Lion in its first year of independence was Joey Boy, Rotten to the Core, Dr Who and the Daleks and Dr Terror's House of Horrors. By November 1965 British Lion were seeking re-nationalisation.

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This laboured farce makes a peculiarly dispiriting addition to the list of Launder-Gilliat productions. The script, an anthology of clichés of barrack-room and wide-boy humour, interspersed with juvenile horseplay and tired vulgarity, is bereft of wit and originality. Since Frank Launder's sluggish direction fails to remedy these deficiencies, the film is as visually shoddy as it is unfunny. In the circumstances, it is not too surprising that Harry H. Corbett's central performance should resolve itself into an unpleasingly complacent display of mugging, and the experienced supporting players make equally little of their unpromising material. The film does perhaps perk up slightly with the visit of the parliamentary delegation, but only by comparison with the tedium of what has gone before, and the final shot (Harry H. Corbett pulling a lavatory chain) is all too crudely apt."

The Guardian called it a "hopelessly ramshackle vehicle" for Harry Corbett.

Britmovie wrote, "despite pretensions to follow in the same vein as the Boulting Brothers Private's Progress [1956] there’s a distinct lack of humour here, the combined talents of TV comics Harry H. Corbett, Reg Varney and Stanley Baxter are sadly wasted in this fitful film."