Light Up the Sky! (film)

Light Up the Sky! (US release title Skywatch) is a 1960 British comedy drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Ian Carmichael, Tommy Steele and Benny Hill. The film also features Dick Emery in a minor role.

Light Up the Sky! was based on Robert Storey's West End play Touch It Light.

Plot
In 1942 during the Second World War, Lieutenant Ogleby is in command of a searchlight and anti-aircraft unit somewhere in England. Ogleby visits only occasionally to check up on the unit. In his absence Lance Bombardier Tomlinson is in charge, but he struggles to maintain some kind of order and he frequently turns a blind eye to the lack of discipline and even their local thieving.

Camp comic Syd McGaffey tries to keep up with the romantic antics of his younger brother Eric, who comes back from a short leave and announces that he has got married. He soon takes up with a local girl and gets her pregnant, falling foul of her father. Ted Green is a widower with a son serving overseas, and he eagerly maintains a correspondence with him. Leslie Smith is lovesick and unhappy over a misunderstanding with his girlfriend and eventually goes AWOL to get to see her. Roland Kenyon is the unit's cook and a father of six children. He has ambitions to get a posting to a catering unit.

One night, they illuminate a German airplane. The plane is hit and dives toward their searchlight. It overshoots and crashes, but Smith is killed while shooting at it.

Cast

 * Ian Carmichael as Lieutenant Ogleby
 * Tommy Steele as Eric McGaffey
 * Benny Hill as Syd McGaffey
 * Sydney Tafler as Ted Green
 * Victor Maddern as Lance Bombardier Tomlinson
 * Harry Locke as Roland Kenyon
 * Johnny Briggs as Leslie Smith
 * Cyril Smith as 'Spinner' Rice
 * Dick Emery as Harry
 * Cardew Robinson as Compere
 * Susan Burnet as Jean
 * Sheila Hancock as Theatre Act
 * Fred Griffiths as Mr. Jennings

Production
Light Up the Sky! was based on the play Touch It Light, which premiered in 1957. Producer and director Lewis Gilbert liked it and arranged for it to be filmed. "There have been countless films featuring heroic officers and I feel it is time the ordinary private is given his due," said Gilbert.

The film was developed by Eros Films but then that company decided not to make it after being taken over by Albert Broccoli and Irwin Allen. Gilbert instead arranged finance through Bryanston.

Light Up the Sky! was Tommy Steele's first dramatic role. Lionel Bart who wrote songs for Steele's first three films, wrote a song for this film called, "Touch It Light" which Steele performs with Hill.

Criterion Film Productions provided £22,500 of the budget and Tommy Steele deferred £7,500 of his fee.

Box office
Light Up the Sky! earned Bryanston a small profit of £4,466. Kine Weekly called it a "money maker" at the British box office in 1960.

Critical reception
The Guardian in 1960 described Light Up the Sky! as a "small, sensible and somehow touching film with a whiff of authenticity about it".

The Radio Times dismissed it as a "hackneyed theatrical hand-me-down". Eleanor Mannikka at Allmovie called it an "unexceptional comedy". TV Guide called it "pointless", but observed Benny Hill "exhibits the form that would later make him a popular television star in both the UK and US" and admitted to finding the film "occasionally amusing". Film Threat called it "A great little wartime drama" and asked "Why isn't this gem better known?" Film reviewer Peter Burnett noted that "for British nostalgia fans and cineastes in general, it will be a fabulous treat".