"Actor: Jerry Desmonde"

• The Norman Wisdom Collection | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £44.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (33.34%)   |  RRP £59.99

  This Norman Wisdom Collection contains 12 vintage Wisdom comedies, from 1953's Trouble in Store to 1966's Press for Time. All are also released as six separate two-in-one sets. Please refer to our individual film reviews for each release: Trouble in Store/Up in the World The Square Peg/Follow a Star On the Beat/Man of the Moment The Bulldog Breed/One Good TurnA Stitch in Time/Just My Luck The Early Bird/Press for Time On the DVDs: The Norman Wisdom Collection has four brand-new audio commentaries from Norman Wisdom himself in conversation with film historian Robert Ross. The four films with commentary are: Trouble in Store (1953), On the Beat (1962), A Stitch in Time (1963) and The Early Bird (1965). All the discs come with a trailer and English subtitles as standard.

• Trouble In Store / Up In The World | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £8.25   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Norman Wisdom became an instant movie star with the release of Trouble in Store in 1953. Playing a character called Norman, he brought his familiar stage and television personality to the big screen as a young man with the ambition to become a window dresser in a major department store. Ever lovable victim of his own clumsiness, all Norman's efforts to improve himself result in chaos. That is, until he meets Sally (Lana Morris), the girl of his dreams. Then things turn disastrous. Costarring Margaret Rutherford, Trouble in Store introduced Wisdom's self-penned song which would become his theme, "Don't laugh at Me ('cause I'm a Fool)". The film became a massive box-office hit and won Wisdom a BAFTA Award. Very much of its time, admittedly, it's still highly entertaining. In 1956 the title of his latest film, Up in the World accurately described Norman Wisdom's career. This was the great British comedian's fourth hit in as many years, this time finding himself employed as window cleaner to Lady Banderville (Ambrosine Phillpotts). Apart from having hundreds of windows to polish, things would be going fine for Norman if it weren't for the endless practical jokes played by Lady Banderville's son, Sir Reginald (Michael Caridia). However, when the irritating Reggie is kidnapped, Norman has the chance to prove himself a hero, and it just might impress his beautiful costar Maureen Swanson. By now Wisdom was set on a winning formula, working with much the same team as on his three previous smashes, including Jerry Desmonde as Major Willoughby, who had starred in both Trouble in Store (1953) and Man of the Moment (1955). --Gary S Dalkin

• Norman Wisdom - The Early Bird | DVD | (21/10/2009) from £9.13   |  Saving you £-2.88 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  An hilarious comedy about the deadly rivalry between a giant milk marketing company and an old-fashioned one-horse dairy.

• Stitch In Time, A / Just My Luck | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £7.26   |  Saving you £6.99 (116.50%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Norman Wisdom reprises his famous Pitkin character for the third time in A Stitch in Time, and Edward Chapman is also back to provide Norman with the excuse to reprise his immortal catch-phrase "Mr Grimsdale!". Here he succeeds in causing chaos in a St John Ambulance unit, as well as donning drag to play a blonde nurse complete with suspender belt and silk stockings. Each Norman Wisdom movie usually sees him as the accidental Lord of Misrule in one institution or another, and this time it's the NHS: after being banned from his local hospital, Norman resorts to subterfuge to visit a little orphan girl. There's an autobiographical touch here, as Wisdom himself was raised in an orphanage and centred the plot of One Good Turn (1954) around such an establishment. --Gary S Dalkin An important step in the career of Norman Wisdom, Just My Luck is principally notable for the introduction of actor Edward Chapman, whom many would come to know as series regular Mr Grimsdale. Here he's the stuffy foil to Norman's romantic plans regarding his jewel-making job, where he'll do anything to possess some of the wealth about him. The chance comes in the form of an accumulator bet at Goodwood races thanks to a slimy Leslie Phillips. Another star cameo of note was a second appearance by Margaret Rutherford (after Trouble in Store) as an eccentric animal owner. But the real advance with the Wisdom formula was that--after a reasonably serious plot line--Norman finally gets the girl. --Paul Tonks

• Gonks Go Beat | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Pop music fantasy in which a representative from outer space is sent to earth to settle a dispute between the disciples of beat and ballad.

• Square Peg, The / Follow A Star | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £4.31   |  Saving you £8.68 (201.39%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In The Square Peg Norman Wisdom plays one of a pair of council workmen who, while repairing the road outside an army base, come to illustrate the oxymoronic nature of the phrase "military intelligence". Finding themselves drafted, the workmen are sent to repair the roads ahead of the Allied advance through war-torn Europe by the sergeant they previously embarrassed. Norman finds himself behind the German lines, joins up with French Resistance, gets captured then sets out to rescue British prisoners from a German military HQ by impersonating General Schreiber. Of course Wisdom plays Schreiber too. The Square Peg is the film that introduced Norman Wisdom's famous catch-phrase, "Mr. Grimsdale!". Also here Hattie Jacques gets to sing a remarkable duet with Wisdom, and a pre-Goldfinger Honor Blackman provides the love interest. Following his rising star was just what Norman Wisdom's audience had been doing all through the 1950s and, by 1959, and after six films with director John Paddy Carstairs, it was time for a change. Hence Robert Asher made his directorial debut with Follow a Star. The plot is a comedy version of A Star is Born (1954), with Norman yet again playing a dreaming shop worker, this time aspiring to singing stardom. Vernon Carew (played by Wisdom regular Jerry Desmonde) is the fading singer who schemes to use Wisdom's talent to sustain his own rapidly failing career, while the girl is overlooked starlette June Laverick. Norman is surrounded by a particularly strong supporting cast, with Hattie Jacques returning from The Square Peg (1958), Richard Wattis, John Le Mesurier, Fenella Fielding, Ron Moody and, uncredited, future Bond villain Charles Grey. --Gary S Dalkin

• A Stitch In Time | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Norman Wisdom returns as his famous "Pitkin" character, but also for the first time since his appearance in 1958's The Square Peg, Edward Chapman is also back to provide Norman with the excuse to reprise his immortal catch-phrase "Mr Grimsdale". Following on from the previous year's On the Beat, this is actually Wisdom's third adventure as Norman Pitkin, and he certainly has a thing about uniforms. In the previous pictures he was in the army then the police, while here he succeeds in causing chaos in a St. John's Ambulance unit, as well as donning drag to play a blonde nurse complete with suspender belt and silk stockings. Each Norman Wisdom movie usually sees him as the accidental Lord of Misrule in one institution or another, and this time its the NHS: after being banned from his local hospital, Norman resorts to subterfuge to visit a little orphan girl. There's an autobiographical touch here, as Wisdom himself was raised in an orphanage and centred the plot of One Good Turn (1954) around such an establishment. It's all good fun and clearly shows where such later British comedy as Michael Crawford's BBC TV series Some Mothers Do 'Av 'Em (1973-78) found its inspiration. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Early Bird, The / Press For Time | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Norman Wisdom reprises his best-loved character, the comically inept Pitkin, in 1965's The Early Bird, ably supported once again by Edward Chapman in his final appearance as Mr Grimsdale. This time around Wisdom is the only milkman working for Grimsdale's Dairy, a small business threatened by a menacing large corporation in the shape of Consolidated Dairies and their electric milk floats. Grimsdale and Pitkin must evoke the Dunkirk spirit to save their family firm from the grasp of the faceless giant. Of course, the wafer-thin plot is the merest excuse for a series of calamitous set pieces in which Wisdom wreaks havoc in his trademark bumbling manner. The best bits involve a disastrous game of golf, the usual shenanigans with a fire hose and a virtuoso tour de force opening sequence as the household struggles to wake up in the morning, all set to Ron Goodwin's tongue-in-cheek music score. --Mark Walker In Press for Time Norman Wisdom offered his version of the crusading reporter movie, though by 1966 time was running out for Norman's style of big-screen comedy. Perhaps a sign of his growing frustration with the formulaic nature of his pictures was that he stretched himself to play not just his usual underdog hero, but also his own mother and his grandfather, the Prime Minister. Wisdom also cowrote the movie in which, as a reporter in a small seaside town, he causes chaos for the council, organises a beauty parade and dresses as a suffragette. Though now nearing the end of his years as a movie star, Wisdom shows himself to still be as polished as ever at his own brand of good-natured slapstick. --Gary S Dalkin

• Cadfael - Complete Collection | DVD | (21/10/2009) from £21.25   |  Saving you £-16.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Man of the world turned man of the cloth - Cadfael (Derek Jacobi) is a rare hero. He is a man who has chosen to live as a monk - yet he's no saint. Once a solider who fought in the Crusades he has lived - and loved. Even his devotion to the church is not enough to suppress his curiosity to quell his love of mystery. This release features all the storylines from Series One to Four based on the novels by Ellis Peters.

• A King In New York - Charlie Chaplin Blu-ray (AE) | Blu Ray | (28/09/2015) from £9.98   |  Saving you £13.00 (185.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

   The comedy king gives American pop culture and politics the royal treatment in the satiric penultimate Chaplin film 'A King in New York'. Advertising movies TV rock music celebrity and more are in Chaplin's comic sights as he portrays a deposed European monarch who becomes a U.S. media sensation.

• The Early Bird | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £16.24   |  Saving you £-3.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Norman Wisdom reprises his best-loved character, the comically inept Pitkin, in 1965's The Early Bird, ably supported once again by Edward Chapman in his final appearance as Mr Grimsdale. This time around Wisdom is the only milkman working for Grimsdale's Dairy, a small business threatened by a menacing large corporation in the shape of Consolidated Dairies and their electric milk floats. Grimsdale and Pitkin must evoke the Dunkirk spirit to save their family firm from the grasp of the faceless giant. Of course, the wafer-thin plot is the merest excuse for a series of calamitous set pieces in which Wisdom wreaks havoc in his trademark bumbling manner. The best bits involve a disastrous game of golf, the usual shenanigans with a fire hose and a virtuoso tour de force opening sequence as the household struggles to wake up in the morning. Wisdom's own brand of Jerry Lewis-inspired clowning, with mugging and pratfalls aplenty, is all good clean fun with little or none of the smutty innuendo that characterised the contemporary Carry On series. He carries this film, as he does all his others, solely on the strength of his winningly naïve charm: this is innocent comedy from the days before supermarkets really did wreck all the local businesses, not to mention from the days before The Godfather gave a whole new spin on the comedy value of going to bed with your horse. On the DVD: There are no extra features on this disc at all. Given Wisdom's household-name status and the longevity of these much-loved movies, this seems like a sadly missed opportunity. The 4:3 picture has not been digitally remastered and shows its age, as does the muddy mono soundtrack. Only Ron Goodwin's wonderfully tongue-in-cheek music score comes across reasonably well. --Mark Walker

• The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £17.97   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A beautiful angel arrives in Islington London and is forced to pawn her harp at a second-hand shop to raise money for her acts of charity. She proceeds to meet many of the local people forever changing their lives...

• A King In New York - Charlie Chaplin DVD | DVD | (28/09/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

   The comedy king gives American pop culture and politics the royal treatment in the satiric penultimate Chaplin film 'A King in New York'. Advertising movies TV rock music celebrity and more are in Chaplin's comic sights as he portrays a deposed European monarch who becomes a U.S. media sensation.

• Man Of The Moment | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £8.13   |  Saving you £1.86 (22.88%)   |  RRP £9.99

  After an uncredited cameo alongside a gallery of comedy stars in As Long As They're Happy (1955), Norman Wisdom's third hit was the appropriately titled Man of the Moment. Indeed, by 1955 Wisdom was firmly established as Britain's favourite movie comedian, his shy, helpful and good-natured "gump" character forever unintentionally causing catastrophe in the great tradition of Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp". However, while Chaplin ventured into politics in Modern Times (1936) for satirical purposes, when Norman's minor civil servant here accidentally becomes the UK delegate at a conference in Geneva the emphasis is on farce and pratfalls. The plot sees Norman sticking up for the rights of the fictional kingdom of Tawaki against less-than-honest government interests, while his new-found status brings the attention of the ladies, including the return of his Trouble in Store (1953) costar Lana Morris. Continuing his collaboration with veteran director John Paddy Carstairs, the film is a polished laughter machine that continues to entertain. The following year cinema audiences continued to see Norman go Up In the World, while fans of that other British comedy institution, the Carry On series, will be pleased to spot Charles Hawtrey in a supporting role. --Gary S Dalkin

• Follow A Star | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In The Square Peg Norman Wisdom plays one of a pair of council workmen who, while repairing the road outside an army base, come to illustrate the oxymoronic nature of the phrase "military intelligence". Finding themselves drafted, the workmen are sent to repair the roads ahead of the Allied advance through war-torn Europe by the sergeant they previously embarrassed. Norman finds himself behind the German lines, joins up with French Resistance, gets captured then sets out to rescue British prisoners from a German military HQ by impersonating General Schreiber. Of course Wisdom plays Schreiber too. The Square Peg is the film that introduced Norman Wisdom's famous catch-phrase, "Mr. Grimsdale!". Also here Hattie Jacques gets to sing a remarkable duet with Wisdom, and a pre-Goldfinger Honor Blackman provides the love interest. Following his rising star was just what Norman Wisdom's audience had been doing all through the 1950s and, by 1959, and after six films with director John Paddy Carstairs, it was time for a change. Hence Robert Asher made his directorial debut with Follow a Star. The plot is a comedy version of A Star is Born (1954), with Norman yet again playing a dreaming shop worker, this time aspiring to singing stardom. Vernon Carew (played by Wisdom regular Jerry Desmonde) is the fading singer who schemes to use Wisdom's talent to sustain his own rapidly failing career, while the girl is overlooked starlette June Laverick. Norman is surrounded by a particularly strong supporting cast, with Hattie Jacques returning from The Square Peg (1958), Richard Wattis, John Le Mesurier, Fenella Fielding, Ron Moody and, uncredited, future Bond villain Charles Grey. --Gary S Dalkin

• Up In The World | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In 1956 the title of his latest film, Up in the World accurately described Norman Wisdom's career. This was the great British comedian's fourth hit in as many years, this time finding himself employed as window cleaner to Lady Banderville (Ambrosine Phillpotts). Apart from having hundreds of windows to polish, things would be going fine for Norman if it weren't for the endless practical jokes played by Lady Banderville's son, Sir Reginald (Michael Caridia). However, when the irritating Regie is kidnapped, Norman has the chance to prove himself a hero, and it just might impress Jeannie Andrews too, his beautiful co-star Maureen Swanson, then making a name for herself in A Town Like Alice and The Spanish Gardener (both 1956). By now Norman Wisdom was set on a winning formula, working with much the same team as on his three previous smashes, including Jerry Desmonde as Major Willoughby, who had starred in both Trouble in Store (1953) and Man of the Moment (1955). Later, in Carry On Regardless (1961) Desmonde would make a single appearance with another British comedy institution, and interestingly Ambrosine Phillpotts would be there in the same film. Norman meanwhile, would go on to his good fortune in Just My Luck (1957). --Gary S. Dalkin

• Trouble In Store | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Perhaps surprisingly, the British comedy legend Norman Wisdom has made just 20 films, from his debut in Date With a Dream (1948) to the thriller Double-X (1992). From 1948 on he had his own TV series, Wit and Wisdom, but 1953 was the real turning point. Not only was his son Nicholas born, but he became an instant movie star with the release of Trouble in Store. Playing a character called Norman he brought his familiar stage and television personality to the big screen as a young man with the ambition to become a window dresser in a major department store. Ever loveable victim of his own clumsiness, all Norman's efforts to improve himself result in chaos. That is, until he meets Sally (Lana Morris), the girl of his dreams. Then things turn disastrous. Co-starring Margaret Rutherford, Trouble in Store introduced Wisdom's self-penned song which would become his theme, "Don't laugh at Me ('Cause I'm a Fool)". The film became a massive box-office hit and won Wisdom a BAFTA Award. Very much of its time, yet still highly entertaining, this video release provides the opportunity to nostalgically revisit and reassess one of Britain's greatest stars. Wisdom's follow-up was another substantial hit, One Good Turn (1954). --Gary S. Dalkin