The Navy Lark ** (1959, Leslie Phillips, Cecil Parker, Ronald Shiner, Elvi Hale, Nicholas Phipps, Gordon Jackson) – Classic Movie Review 13,759

The 1959 British comedy film The Navy Lark is based on one of the most successful comedy series in UK radio history, and stars Cecil Parker, Ronald Shiner, Leslie Phillips and Elvi Hale. Even so, it bombed.

Director Gordon Parry’s 1959 British comedy film The Navy Lark stars Leslie Phillips, Cecil Parker, Ronald Shiner, Elvi Hale, Nicholas Phipps, and Gordon Jackson.

Commander Stanton (Cecil Parker) and his mine-sweeping boatload of 50s comedy stalwarts do everything they know to stop their navy base being scrapped, in a shaky farce based on the incredibly popular BBC radio series by Lawrie Wyman. Leslie Phillips stars as Lieutenant Pouter with Ronald Shiner as Chief Petty Officer Banyard, and Elvi Hale as Leading WREN Heather Stark. Nicholas Phipps has a very good role as Captain Povey, who fancies shutting down the redundant minesweeping detachment on the fictional Channel Island of Boonsey.

Of all the cast, only Leslie Phillips had appeared on the radio version.

The Navy Lark is high-spirited and packed with good natured performances, particularly from Leslie Phillips, Cecil Parker, Elvi Hale, Nicholas Phipps and Gordon Jackson. But the comedy is rather strained and desperately unsubtle, Ronald Shiner is an irritation, and it was probably better on radio when broadcast on the BBC Light Programme.

The screenplay is by Sid Colin and Lawrie Wyman.

It is produced by Herbert Wilcox and Anna Neagle.

The film appeared soon after the radio series started in 1959. Shiner replaced radio star Jon Pertwee, who much later said the film bombed because audiences did not consider the film to be The Navy Lark as he and his colleagues Dennis Price and Stephen Murray were not in it. Pertwee alleged that he was dumped for Shiner after he objected when producer Herbert Wilcox refused to employ Price ‘because he was gay’. 

The setting is changed to the fictional Channel Island of Boonsey. 

The radio series ran through 244 episodes from 1959 to1977, all with Lawrie Wyman as writer or co-writer.

Cast: Leslie Phillips, Cecil Parker, Ronald Shiner, Elvi Hale, Nicholas Phipps, Gordon Jackson, Cardew Robinson, Harold Kasker, Hattie Jacques as fortune teller, Reginald Beckwith, Kenneth J Warren, Wanda Ventham, Richard Coleman, Llewellyn Rees, Clive Morton, Gordon Harris, Van Boolen, Gordon Whiting, Walter Hudd, Tom Gill.

The Navy Lark is directed by Gordon Parry, runs 82 minutes, is made by Wilcox-Neagle, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Sid Colin and Laurie Wyman, is shot by Gordon Dines, is produced by Herbert Wilcox, and scored by Tommy Reilly.

Leslie Phillips (20 April 1924 – 7 November 2022)

Elvi Hale (29 January 1931 – March 1, 2025)

Elvi Hale (born Patricia Elvira Hake on 29 January 1931) was nominated for a BAFTA award for most promising film newcomer for True as a Turtle (1957). She played Heather, Leslie Phillips’s love interest in the film of The Navy Lark (1959). She played Anne of Cleves in the 1970 TV mini series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, with Keith Michell.

She retired in 1990. She died on March 1, 2025, aged 94.

She was married to the actor George Murcell from 1960 till his death on December 3, 1998.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,759

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com