The Sandwich Man

Dir: Robert Hartford-Davis

1966

***

The Sandwich Man was quite a forward thinking film in many respects that celebrated London's diversity during the swinging sixties. However, it has dated quite badly, its intentions are clearly good but the humour often misses the mark and it comes very close to racism in certain scenes. Michael Bentine was enjoying a wave of TV success in the mid-sixties and decided to write a feature film that involved various sketches that were all witnessed by one lead character. That lead character was The Sandwich Man, a long-gone profession that would see men with advertising boards strapped to their chests walking the streets of London - I assume they were called sandwich men due to the fact they were sandwiched between two boards, because they certainly didn't only advertise sandwiches. It was a real job, they had unions and everything but by the mid-seventies they were gone. You'll still see people stood with signs pointing to certain shops (usually golf sales) but they're not the same. Bentine played the sandwich man in the film and the audience would see everything he saw as we followed him around the streets of London. He covered a lot of ground too. Along the way the audience is treated to comedy sketches from some of the very best in the business at the time including; Dora Bryan, Harry H. Corbett, Bernard Cribbins, Diana Dors, Norman Wisdom, Terry-Thomas, Ian Hendry, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Stanley Holloway, Ron Moody, Donald Wolfit, Alfie Bass, Warren Mitchell, Peter Jones and Burt Kwouk, however, not all of the sketches are that funny. The film was a flop on release and Bentine commented that he should have directed it himself and had some say in its editing. He was absolutely right. The huge problem with The Sandwich Man is the dreadful editing. Most of the jokes are physical, and with slap-stick timing is everything. There was nothing wrong with the performers in this regard, the problem is that the camera hangs on them for far too long, suffocating the humour and making the joke last uncomfortably longer than it should. It's like a comic telling a bad joke and then waiting five minutes for someone to laugh. This isn't a critical voice from the future either, this is what audiences and critics said at the time too. It's almost criminal that such talent was squandered. Harry H. Corbett really wasn't given much to work with, particularly as he was one of the big headlining acts. Norman Wisdom's scene was also very odd, he's as good as always but his character was poorly written and his situation was a little bit bizarre, given the vast opportunities the overall situation was open to. I can't help but think that some of the older cast members such as Wilfrid Hyde-White and Stanley Holloway weren't ones to be told what to do and their impeccable performances are down to them but that said, certain performances, such as Terry-Thomas's, were great, it's just the terrible editing that ruined their scenes. It is also unfortunate that several of the cast were 'blacked up' for their performances. Roger Delgado played Abdul, an Arab carpet seller, an uncomfortable stereotype, and Hugh Futcher also dressed up as a Sikh, alongside Leon Thau who was born in Palestine but certainly wasn't a Sikh. They all had their skin darkened and had fake beards - I would argue that this was stereotyping rather than offensive racism, I thought the fact that the two Sikhs were in a Jazz band called The Sikhers was quite funny and there was a scene involving Abdul on a magic carpet (that turned out to be on a fork-lift truck) that did make me chuckle. I really do believe that it was an early celebration of London's diversity, as was Bentine's kids show Michael Bentine's Potty Time, also starring Leon Thau. Apart from the wonderful stars of yesteryear, the other great thing about watching The Sandwich Man now is seeing so much of 1960's London. As a Londoner myself, I felt much of the film trying to work out where it was filmed and surprised by how nice certain places used to look compered to now. It's far better than many of the other films that tried similar concepts, the 70s in particular being littered with them. Bentine had regrets, if only he had had full control it probably would be considered a classic now, although it certainly has a strong fan following and enough charm for me to recommend to fellow Brits and Anglophiles.