A Stitch in Time (1963)
Directed by Robert Asher

Film Review

Wetter than the Indian Ocean in the midst of an especially moist monsoon season, A Stitch in Time certainly isn't the most sophisticated of British film comedies, but the under-tens and die-hard fans of Norman Wisdom (Britain's unlikeliest superstar comedian) will no doubt appreciate the film's cloyingly twee charms and somewhat forced zany knockabout humour.  It may be hard to believe, but this lumbering mawkish comedy was a massive box office hit in Britain on its first release back in 1963, the most successful of Wisdom's all-too-many big screen outings. 

Today, Norman Wisdom's idea of comedy (which consists almost entirely of overly repetitive gumpish slapstick) has a limited appeal, although his films were unimaginably popular in their day.  This one suffers from a painfully obvious surfeit of industrial strength saccharine, although the visual gags are impressively staged and some of them are even quite funny.  As in their earlier (and far better) screen-pairings Just My Luck (1957) and The Square Peg (1957), Edward Chapman makes a perfectly lugubrious comedy foil for Norman, although being an accomplished character actor - appearing in such fine films as It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) - he is pretty well wasted in lowbrow comedy fare such as this.  Watch out for fleeting appearances from some other notable British performers of the time (who all went on to become mainstays of popular British sitcom) - Peter Jones, Patsy Rowlands, Patrick Cargill and Pat Coombs.

Pre-teen children with an unnaturally high boredom threshold stand the most chance of enjoying A Stitch in Time, an appropriate target audience for the endless round of madcap infantile comedy and Norman's unceasingly warm, child-like personality.  Unfortunately, the spectacle of a seemingly lobotomised middle-aged goon constantly tripping over his own feet is unlikely to endear the film to an adult audience - at least not without the assistance of several glasses of an intoxicating beverage.  It's surprising how many laughs Norman Wisdom can extract after you've ingested three generous doses of vodka.

Film Synopsis

Norman Pitkin is an enthusiastic but hopelessly incompetent butcher's assistant.  During a hold up, his boss, Mr Grimsdale, accidentally swallows his valuable gold watch in a careless attempt to conceal it, and has to be taken into hospital. Norman thereupon unintentionally wreaks havoc on the wards when he visits his employer, with the result that the two men are banned from the hospital.  This outcome causes Norman some distress because in the course of his visit to the hospital he managed to strike up an immediate friendship with a small orphan girl named Lindy.  The kind-hearted Norman is moved by the girl's inability to talk following the tragic death of her parents in a plane crash.  Undeterred, Norman and Mr Grimsdale come up with a plan to visit Lindy, but merely end up causing even more mayhem as a pair of hopeless St John Ambulance recruits...