The Early Bird (1965) - film review

Norman Pitkin is a milkman who works for Grimsdale’s Dairy, a small family business which supplies milk to just ten streets.  Unable to afford modern equipment, he delivers his milk on a cart drawn by Nellie, his faithful horse.  One day, Norman finds that the milk bottles on his customers’ doorsteps have been smashed and, in their place, bottles of milk supplied by Consolidated Dairies, a vast conglomerate that plans to drive little men like Norman out of business.  Realising that they cannot defeat such a powerful rival, Norman and his boss, Mr Grimsdale, decide to enter into a partnership with Consolidated Dairies.  They can have no idea what they are up against.  Neither does Consolidated Dairies...

Norman Wisdom was at the height of his popularity when he made The Early Bird.  The phenomenal success of his previous film, A Stitch in Time (1963), gave the comic actor the confidence to begin asserting some measure of artistic control over his subsequent films for the Rank Organisation.  In particular, he saw this as an opportunity to break away from the gumpish persona and madcap slapstick that had earned him his fame and his fortune.  The Early Bird was an attempt at a more serious kind of comedy, with realistic characters and an underlying socio-political statement about the harm that big business may inflict on individuals and communities.

Despite Wisdom’s best intentions, The Early Bird ended up as little more than a collection of the kind of elaborate slapstick routines which had featured in the star’s previous films.  Whilst there is plenty of light-hearted fun, these excessive comic excursions undermine the subtext and the film, overall, is somewhat less satisfying than what preceded it.  Audiences weren’t bothered by this.  The Early Bird was a huge hit and remains one of Norman Wisdom’s best known films.

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