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The Bulldog Breed
Robert Asher

The Bulldog Breed

  • Comedy

From The Army's Funniest Private...To The Navy's Most Riotous Seaman!

RELEASE

1960-12-13

BUGET

N/A

LENGTH

97 min

Description

Norman Puckle, a well-meaning but clumsy grocer's assistant, can't seem to do anything right. After being rejected by Marlene, the love of his life, he attempts suicide, but can't even do that. He is saved from jumping off a cliff at 'Lover's Leap' by a Royal Navy petty officer. He persuades Puckle to join the Royal Navy, where he'll meet 'lots of girls'. Life in the Navy proves not to be as rosy as it's been described, and Puckle fails at every task during basic training. But despite this, he's regarded by the Admiral in charge of a rocket project to be a 'typical average British sailor', and chosen to be the first man to fly into outer space in an experimental rocket.

Reviews

CinemaSerf PFP

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

I always think it was a little unfair to compare Norman Wisdom to others when so often he was entirely his own man, putting his own unique comedy spin and timing to good use creating a fun atmosphere for a British population still recovering from the effects of WWII. Here, he's the hapless "Puckle" whose girlfriend - well a gal he rather likes but who doesn't remotely reciprocate - rejects his offer of chocolates and leaves him contemplating suicide. Luckily, he is deterred from such drastic action by a passing sailor who reckons that if things really are that bad, he ought to join the Royal Navy. For all the wrong reasons, he attracts the attention of the Admiral (Ian Hunter) and now various escapades see him lurch from the frying place to the fire, via a chilly mountaintop, before being put to work on a top secret rocket project that we just know is doomed to failure! Hunter takes on the role usually portrayed by the likes of James Robertson Justice, and he does it well providing a foil for star who is having fun with this fairly low budget affair. The production mixes what looks like stock footage with some studio photography (where you can often see the full effects of the polystyrene and the scenery with clear joins in it) but that doesn't really matter. Assisted by a plethora of familiar faces from British cinema, this is really all about a man who knew how to make a generation laugh and using a combination of light slapstick, military stuffiness and the occasional daft one-liner, he manages to do just that - reminding us that is was, after all, the ordinary folk who fought and won the war!