"Actor: Shirley Abicair"

• Norman Wisdom - One Good Turn | DVD | (21/10/2009) from £5.30   |  Saving you £-0.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  A film starring Norman Wisdom, Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair, Director John Paddy Carstairs, Writers Jon Paddy Carstairs, Maurice Cowan, Ted Willis and Dorothy Whipple. producer Maurice Cowan. Rereleased by Granada Ventures Limited

• Bulldog Breed, The / One Good Turn | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1960, Norman Wisdom was left all at sea in The Bulldog Breed. He had already made a farce of the army in The Square Peg (1958), so what better than to join the navy? Back in the real world, the Russians had kick-started the space race putting Sputnik into orbit, so Norman rapidly finds himself selected to be the first Brit in space. Playing to type, the result is excellent physical comedy and copious tomfoolery at the expense of the upper ranks. With support from John Le Mesurier and Edward Chapman (the legendary "Mr Grimsdale") and uncredited appearances from Oliver Reed and Michael Caine, this is a notable British comedy, with an unusually direct reference to the risqué Carry On movies. For his second starring role Norman Wisdom played the oldest orphan of Greenwood Children's Home in 1954's One Good Turn. Not only does he have to find the money to buy one of the orphans a model car, but after a visit to Brighton he discovers Greenwood is due to be closed down by the home's own unscrupulous chairman, a property developer with plans to build a factory on the site. Also starring Thora Hird, One Good Turn was surely a film with a personal resonance for Wisdom who was himself brought-up in an orphanage after his mother died and his father was unable to raise him. As would become a tradition, he contributes a song, "Please Opportunity", and the movie, though produced by Rank, now sits easily in that classic Ealing era where the ordinary man took on the big guys and won. The innocent knockabout humour remains appealing. --Gary S Dalkin

• One Good Turn | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Reunited with many of the team behind Trouble in Store (1953), his smash hit of the previous year, for his second starring role Norman Wisdom played the oldest orphan of Greenwood Children's Home. Having being raised in the home Norman has stayed on as odd-job man, a role which ideally suits his man-child persona. Not only does he have to find the money to buy one of the orphans a model car, but after a visit to Brighton he discovers Greenwood is due to be closed down by the home's own unscrupulous chairman, a property developer with plans to build a factory on the site. Also starring Thora Hird, One Good Turn was surely a film with a personal resonance for Wisdom who was himself brought-up in an orphanage after his mother died and his father was unable to raise him. As would become a tradition, he contributes a song, "Please Opportunity", and the movie, though produced by Rank, now sits easily in that classic Ealing era where the ordinary man took on the big guys and won. The innocent knockabout humour remains appealing and it is simply impossible not to like Norman Wisdom. The film's success led directly to the aptly named Man of the Moment (1955). --Gary S Dalkin

• One Good Turn | DVD | (03/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Norman is an orphan who has stayed on at the orphanage to do odd jobs and ends up doing a lot more. Kind as ever he promises to buy one of the orphans a model car - the only problem now is where to find the cash? Proving his versatility (by being equally bad at every profession) Norman's attemps to earn the money range from a traumatic stint as a sandwichbroad man to a disastrous effort in the boxing ring. Leaving chaos in his wake Norman tackles the world armed with nothing more