A friendly and innocent country postman (Spike Milligan) is called to London where he easily surpasses his big city colleagues. Mistaken for a member of a powerful criminal organization by both the police and a lesser mob, he finds himself in the middle of a postal robbery while he romances a failed modern artist (Barbara Shelley).
There’s no question Postman’s Knock will put a smile on your face. Really. You’ll enjoy it. Trust me.
But it won’t be a big smile, and you won’t enjoy it all that much. And after it’s over, you won’t care that you saw it, or that you’re unlikely to see it again. Every plot point is obvious to even the most infrequent film goer, and every gag is recycled. A man gets hit on the head repeatedly. A chase goes round and round, passing the same people five or six times. An alarm clock malfunctions, as does an elevator. You’ve seen it before. Not that it isn’t pleasant. This is a gentle comedy that delivers on the very little it promises.
Spike Milligan gained fame as one of the members of The Goon Show, which he wrote and starred in with Peter Sellers. Postman’s Knock is simply a vehicle for Milligan with no other reason for existing. The focus cuts away from him on rare occasions for minute bits of plot or a slapstick joke, but Milligan dominates the film. Since he has a touch of charm and passable comic timing, it’s no hardship to be stuck with him for eighty-eight minutes.
The Post-War British Comedy movement was fading away by the beginning of the 1960s, and little of it is visible in Postman’s Knock. It is a very British picture (no one would confuse it for a Hollywood film), and it has the theme of the superiority of rural—one could say backwards—life over urban modernism that was prevalent in English films of the ’50s. But outside of those superficial similarities, only the presence of movement stalwart Miles Malleson, in a minor role, suggests a reason to set this next to The Green Man or Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Postman’s Knock is good, wholesome, forgettable fun for the family, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Barbara Shelley is best known for her roles in horror films, including Blood of the Vampire (1958), Village of the Damned (1960), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967), as well as the unhorrific Pride and Prejudice (1980).