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00:21Idle on Parade, 1959, Idle spelt IDOL and IDLE,
00:28according to which version you want to see. They're the same film. And a massive platform really for
00:36Anthony Newley. It was to really send him into stardom from what had been a very successful
00:43theatrical career and a fairly extensive film career already. Now when we watch it we would
00:50probably think that that weird mix of sort of army and musical might seem a little strange but
00:55there's two elements to that you've got to bear in mind. One is Elvis had been called up and had
01:01become a GI. That was huge at the time. So what basically the filmmakers were doing, which was
01:07Warwick Films, they were making sure that they had their own version of Elvis and they were putting
01:13him in the army and going okay what happens when a major rock star goes into the army? This being
01:19the British army rather than the American army we're talking national service. Between 1947 and 1963
01:26every man between 17 and 21 had to be forcibly signed up to join the army. They actually stopped
01:34the call-ups in 1960 but everybody theoretically had to do national service for two years if they were
01:42fit enough and within that age group. You hear Anthony Newley say oh yeah but what about getting
01:47me out of it? What about my my dispensation? You know well no no you haven't got it and everybody
01:52would
01:52probably have tried to get out of national service at that time even as a rock star supposedly Newley
01:58get called up. The other reason why I think this is an important sort of element of an army stroke
02:05musical is that the 1950s had had a massive number of films released that were set in World War II
02:12and
02:12were about the army. Now of course the way that the British looked back at their times in World War
02:18II
02:18wasn't in a kind of triumphalist way about the entire thing, about the end of Nazi Germany, about
02:24the discovery of the Holocaust, any of those things. It was specific individual events within World War II
02:30that they made films about which is why you get the likes of the Dambusters, Reach for the Sky and
02:38ultimately of course Cockleshell Heroes which had had a young man in it playing marine called Anthony
02:43Newley only a few years earlier and so army films were very very popular but then what they became
02:50was army caper films and in 1958 you get the first and potentially the greatest of them all
02:57which is carry-on sergeant. Carry-on sergeant of course kicks off the entire carry-on franchise
03:02but it also introduces this idea of young recruits playing around with the whole idea of the army
03:11and playing around with the whole idea of the army as representative of establishment of the man of
03:19their parents and all the rest of it. So to create what's basically a star vehicle for a young man
03:26who
03:26has not really been recognized as a rock star up until this point until he makes this film is a
03:33very
03:33canny move. This is a fascinating cuspal period for music in the UK because what all these films
03:41represented were skiffle into rock and roll the last vestiges of jazz as a kind of 60s young persons
03:50thing and it's all going to be swept away within a couple of years by Mersey Beat. So what we
03:57have in
03:58this particular film is a form of rock and roll called Rockaboogee. I suspect Newley was the one who
04:05particularly wanted to pursue this because Rockaboogee is that boogie woogie piano left hand
04:11and over the top of it you can put a rock band but it means that there's kind of a
04:19slightly jazzy feel
04:21to what's happening. Anthony Newley was responsible for writing most of the songs in this film as well
04:27as performing them and he is the sole performer. The biggest hit number in the film the one that he
04:32had
04:32the success with is I've waited so long and rather than actually set that against a barrack room
04:38background or try and make a big musical number out of it, Anthony Newley's character goes to a
04:43record shop to listen to it with his girlfriend and watches people buying the records. All of the
04:48songs in this film are that kind of rock stroke ballad that had really established itself particularly
04:57in Britain at this point and what you have to bear in mind with the songs in Idle on Parade
05:03is that
05:03they really do have to be shoehorned in. Two that we hear him actually present for the camera are done
05:10as part of an army concert troupe which is kind of what you'd expect. The film itself well funny old
05:17piece really. Lionel Jeffries doing his normal bumbling officer routine. A very good cast for the most part
05:23and the sort of film that I think most people who went to the pictures would have really enjoyed as
05:27a b-movie. Nobody was particularly turning out for Anthony Newley at this point but Anthony Newley could
05:33fill the trousers of a rock star very very easily and he has got all the confidence you could possibly
05:40want. The director is the almost great John Gilling who would later on go on to make the really
05:47interesting Hammer films Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile. He's someone who was a very safe
05:52pair of hands and knew what he was doing with this film but it has to be said there's lots
05:57of evidence
05:58of a fairly low budget. One or two nasty exteriors and the whole thing has got a kind of easy
06:04going
06:04feel to it which actually feels much more about an older generation dealing with something like
06:10national service than the actual young people we're dealing with there. Almost everybody in this film
06:16all the youngsters anyway are wearing the kind of clothes their parents would have been wearing
06:21you haven't got much in the way of smart suits. This feels like a very safe film and in its
06:28own
06:28particular way as a piece of history if you like it has its interests but as a musical well it's
06:36not
06:36really it's a caper it's an army comedy but it does work as far as Anthony Newley is concerned. Newley's
06:43star is stratospheric after this film simply because he acted the role of a superstar and did it like he
06:52knew what he was doing and that superstardom is what was just beckoning around the corner. Bear in
06:58mind also that as a songwriter he's going to go on to work with Leslie Brickus on some of the
07:03great
07:03musicals and as far as film is concerned they're going to do things like Willy Wonka and the
07:09Chocolate Factory and not that many years ahead. Newley is someone to whom I think we owe a great deal
07:16he was absolutely fundamentally British he was a London boy his stage persona and the way that he
07:25developed that is something that was hugely and you probably already know this but hugely influential on
07:32David Bowie. Bowie's singing style particularly followed totally from Anthony Newley and even the
07:39laughing gnome much maligned sounds like an Anthony Newley novelty song but later David Bowie also takes
07:47on some of those mannerisms those tics of performance that Anthony Newley had and you can even see them
07:54here you can see the way that he's loving the limelight you can see the way that he puts little
08:00kind of
08:00jumps and hiccups into the way that he sings it's not yet fully formed newly that would come really
08:07within a fairly short time and another film of his jazz boat in which he was already assuming the role
08:14of international superstar but with this he's being supported by an absolutely extraordinary number of
08:23great character actors and just see if you can spot them keep an eye out for Sid James, Harry Fowler,
08:31David Lodge, Dilys Lay, Bernie Winters, John Wood, Susan Hampshire, Geoffrey Balden and tucked in amongst a slew of
08:40reporters Clive Dunn. But also Alan and Broccoli have brought onto the screen one great big gun and that is
08:48Hollywood's own William Bendix. William Bendix was well known as a character actor in England he had
08:55starred in Hollywood movies he'd really made his name over there he was huge and I wouldn't say he's
09:00exactly on the skids he doesn't look particularly well in this film but it's the first film that he
09:06made in England and it was obviously worth his while coming over to shoot it. He has a pretty authentic
09:12Irish accent there'll be no performing midgets here but more than anything else he does manage to
09:18tread that thin line between being a regimental sergeant major who won't put up with any rubbish
09:24from these guys and a reasonably warm-hearted man who quite gets into the music. Bendix is an anomaly
09:32in this film but he is someone who I think made the movie financeable that's probably the big difference
09:40difference. After this film Anthony Newley didn't need any Hollywood stars brought in to try and
09:45back him up. Newley was the star himself.
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