All of the mines have long been cleared from the waters around the Channel Islands, so the Admiralty orders the crew of the sweeper Troutbridge paid off and the frigate decommissioned. That interferes with the idyllic existence of the crew, so they employ various maneuvers the frustrate orders...
In one of the "Carry On" series, someone tells Sid James that the Arabs they are about to encounter are very intense. "Well, the Arabs do everything in tents, don't they?
As another reviewer noted, the American TV sitcom, "McHale's Navy" of 1962-66 comes to mind from the very start of this film. No doubt the makers of McHale got their ideas from this British farce.
Its quite good as I remember but apart from Leslie Phillips there are no other members of the radio cast in the film, Herbert Wilcox bought the rights during the broadcast of the first radio series which was written with Jon Pertwee as the leading actor, as long as fans of the radio version are not expecting this to have any resemblance to that then it comes over as a good British comedy. I don't believe it has ever been released on VHS or DVD , the only times I have seen it is either the middle of the night or I think its been broadcast on a Saturday afternoon.
Here is another great old British comedy from the 1950s about life in the British Navy just after WWII. I believe this film is up there with the Carry on films and "Doctor" series, indeed sharing some of the same cast such as Hattie Jacques, Cecil parker, Nicholas Phipps and Leslie Phillips.
After watching The Navy Lark which for years was a popular British radio show about the crew of a minesweeper on peacetime duty I now know where a lot of the comedy and the general idea for McHale's Navy came from. The situations seemed remarkably close.
Before TV spin offs there came radio spin offs such as Life With The Lyons,The Grove family and 20Questions Murder Mystery.In those films the original radio cast was used but not here.
