Bottoms Up (1960 film)

Bottoms Up
Directed by	Mario Zampi
Written by	Michael Pertwee Additional dialogue by Frank Muir Denis Norden
Produced by	Giulio Zampi Mario Zampi
Starring	Jimmy Edwards Arthur Howard Martita Hunt Sydney Tafler Mitch Mitchell
Cinematography	Gilbert Taylor
Edited by	Richard Best
Music by	Stanley Black
Production company	Transocean [Mario Zampi Productions]
Distributed by	Warner-Pathé Distributors
Release date	8 March 1960 (1960-03-08) (London)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Bottoms Up is a 1960 British comedy film.

It stars Jimmy Edwards in a spin-off of his TV comedy series Whack-O!, playing the seedy, alcoholic, cane-wielding headmaster of Chiselbury School, a fictional British public school. Screenplay was by Michael Pertwee, with additional dialogue by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.

The cast includes juvenile actor John "Mitch" Mitchell (as Wendover), who in the late 1960s was the drummer in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, using his adult stage name, Mitch Mitchell, and it also marks the first film appearance of Richard Briers.

Plot summary

Professor Jim Edwards is the headmaster of Chiselbury School, a private boarding school for boys. A new head of the school's Board of Governors threatens to replace him as headmaster unless he can drastically improve the school's performance. When Edwards is also confronted by his bookmaker demanding money he owes and which he cannot pay, he devises a plan to deal with both problems by agreeing to accept into Chiselbury the bookmaker's son who will impersonate the heir to the throne of an oil-rich (fictional) state in the Middle East, which he hopes will persuade other parents to enrol their sons.

Cast list

• Jimmy Edwards as Professor Jim Edwards
• Arthur Howard as Oliver Pettigrew
• Mitch Mitchell (billed as John Mitchell) as Peregrine Wendover
• Martita Hunt as Lady Gore-Willoughby
• Sydney Tafler as Sid Biggs
• Raymond Huntley as Garrick Jones
• Reginald Beckwith as Bishop Wendover
• Vanda Hudson as Matron (as Vanda)
• Melvyn Hayes as Cecil Biggs
• Donald Hewlett as Hamley
• Richard Briers as Colbourne

Critical reception

• TV Guide called the film an "inane slapstick comedy set in an English boarding school ... Forced humour from a slapdash script and direction."
• Allmovie wrote: "producer/director Mario Zampi knows where the laughs are and knows how to get them in full measure."
• Sky movies wrote: "it could have been a lot funnier, but, even so, it's a useful record of Edwards in his element."

External links

• Bottoms Up at IMDb