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Desert Mice
Desert Mice is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Michael Relph and starring Alfred Marks, Sid James, Dora Bryan, Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier and Liz Fraser. The screenplay was by David Climie. A group of ENSA entertainers with the British army in the North Africa desert during the Second World War thwart a Nazi plan. The title is a play on the Desert Rats.
It was a Welbeck Presentation released through Rank.
An ENSA group tours around North Africa entertaining British troops. One night, Bert hears the tune (with no words) for "Lily Marlene". He sets about writing a variety of lyrics to the tune. Attached to an intelligence unit they realise that when singing their words to the well-known tune some in the audience are singing in German, exposing them as spies.
The film was made through Sydney Box Associates, who had a deal with the Rank Organisation. The movie was produced through Welbeck Film Distributors, one of Box's companies. Among the other films it made for Rank at this time were The Night We Dropped a Clanger, Too Young to Love, Faces in the Dark and Conscience Bay.
The original title was Every Night Something Awful, which was a joke alternative meaning for ENSA. Filming took place in September 1959. The title was changed to Desert Mice in October 1959.
In one of the lorries a photo of football player Dave Mackay is visible. While the film is set during the Second World War, Mackay did not start his professional football career until 1952.
Sight and Sound said "good idea and a talented cast thrown away on a lazy and boorish script."
Kinematograph called it a "giddy World War II burlesque, given French and North African backdrops... The sallies, mostly at ENSA, are aimed at sitting targets, but a versatile and povular cast and a resourceful director see that the fusillade, punctuated by songs, explodes in laughs. Colourful and realistic settings, worthy of actual war epics, not only furnish sharp contrast, but also amplify its down-to-earth fooling."
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Desert Mice
Desert Mice is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Michael Relph and starring Alfred Marks, Sid James, Dora Bryan, Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier and Liz Fraser. The screenplay was by David Climie. A group of ENSA entertainers with the British army in the North Africa desert during the Second World War thwart a Nazi plan. The title is a play on the Desert Rats.
It was a Welbeck Presentation released through Rank.
An ENSA group tours around North Africa entertaining British troops. One night, Bert hears the tune (with no words) for "Lily Marlene". He sets about writing a variety of lyrics to the tune. Attached to an intelligence unit they realise that when singing their words to the well-known tune some in the audience are singing in German, exposing them as spies.
The film was made through Sydney Box Associates, who had a deal with the Rank Organisation. The movie was produced through Welbeck Film Distributors, one of Box's companies. Among the other films it made for Rank at this time were The Night We Dropped a Clanger, Too Young to Love, Faces in the Dark and Conscience Bay.
The original title was Every Night Something Awful, which was a joke alternative meaning for ENSA. Filming took place in September 1959. The title was changed to Desert Mice in October 1959.
In one of the lorries a photo of football player Dave Mackay is visible. While the film is set during the Second World War, Mackay did not start his professional football career until 1952.
Sight and Sound said "good idea and a talented cast thrown away on a lazy and boorish script."
Kinematograph called it a "giddy World War II burlesque, given French and North African backdrops... The sallies, mostly at ENSA, are aimed at sitting targets, but a versatile and povular cast and a resourceful director see that the fusillade, punctuated by songs, explodes in laughs. Colourful and realistic settings, worthy of actual war epics, not only furnish sharp contrast, but also amplify its down-to-earth fooling."