Paul Martin (Griffith Jones), a wealthy doctor, leaves his wife Clare (Googie Withers) at home and takes a bachelor holiday to the seaside. There he meets Miranda, a lonely mermaid (Glynis Johns) and agrees to take her to London, disguised as an invalid patient. As she is attractive, enthusiastic, flirtatious, and lacking in the norms
Three small time crooks, Jelly Knight, Scapa Flood, and Lennie the Dip (Dudley Sutton, James Beckett, and Kenneth Griffith) get out of prison to find their old boss, The Duke (Anton Rodgers) dead and the money they stole gone. They fail running their own crimes, but a chance encounter leads them to believe that The
Kindly but repressed school teacher Caroline Trewella (Glynis Johns) takes a trip to Cornwall to see the house she has inherited. It sits on top of a sea cave where a pair of mermaids frolic. The brighter of the two, Miranda (also Glynis Johns) shares a grandfather with Caroline—the two are doubles—and persuades her to
A man (Rex Harrison), later identified as Charles Hathaway, wakes up in Wales with amnesia. With the aid of a specialist (Cecil Parker), he discovers he’s rich, married to a beautiful woman (Kay Kendall), and is an important government official. But quickly things don’t fit properly. His boss (Raymond Huntley) only seems to know him
Norman (Norman Wisdom) is an incompetent and dim stock boy at a large department store. When not destroying things or insulting people, he is chasing after fellow employee Sally (Lana Morris). He repeatedly gets fired by the new boss, Mr. Freeman (Jerry Desmonde) and rehired by dumb luck. Meanwhile, Miss Bacon (Margaret Rutherford) is shoplifting
The unplanned detonation of an unexploded WWII bomb in a London neighborhood uncovers a buried treasure. Professor Hatton-Jones (Margaret Rutherford) is brought in to determine its historical significance, and discovers more than anyone expect: By a 500 year old royal charter, the area is not part of England, but of Burgundy. The locals quickly find
Obnoxious TV personality Robert Wilcot (Ian Carmichael), the Conservative candidate in a by-election, becomes smitten with the Socialist candidate, Stella Stoker (Patricia Bredin). Their two parties try to keep them at each other’s throats, while Wilcot’s uncle, Lord Wilcot (Alastair Sim) uses the election to sell tickets to his amusement park. The writing/producing/directing team of
A collection of generally uninformed and eccentric Brits (including Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, Claire Bloom, Ronald Shiner, James Copeland, Jimmy Edwards, and Mara Lane) travel to Paris and have miscellaneous and unconnected adventures. Nostalgia is on display as much as jokes in this mild comedy. The central idea is that France is a strange and
Wormold (Alec Guinness), an English vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba, is propositioned by stiff-upper-lip spy Hawthorne (Noël Coward) to become an agent for Britain. Having no applicable skills, his friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) suggests he invent his reports, a suggestion he takes to heart. The heads of MI6 back in London (Ralph Richardson, Raymond
At sea, ferryboat captain Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) spends his time in deep conversation with men. In Gibraltar, he lives with his domestic wife Maud (Celia Johnson), enjoying a quiet home life. And in Spanish-Morocco he is married to the wild Nita (Yvonne De Carlo), and spends his nights drinking and dancing. His first
William Horatio Ambrose, a seasick sea captain (Alec Guinness) from a long line of sea captains, purchases a ramshackle “resort pier” where he holds dances. When the greedy town council attempts to take the dock, Ambrose registers the stationary structure as a ship, which puts it beyond the control of locals, and sells “cruises” to
With headmistress Fritton (Alastair Sim) in jail, the older girls of St. Trinian’s concern themselves with marrying a rich Prince. Since he wants to see the girls before choosing one, Flash Harry (George Cole) and the girls rig a contest to win a trip to Europe, and blackmail a jewel thief on the run (Lionel Jeffries)