Peter Viney's Blog

What A Crazy World

1963

 

Directed by Michael Carreras
Screenplay by Alan Klein & Michael Carreras
Based on the stage musical by Alan Klein

Music and lyrics by Alan Klein
Background score by Stanley Black
Played by The Bruvvers

CAST
Joe Brown- Alf Hitchens
Susan Maughan – Marilyn
Marty Wilde- Herbie Shadbolt
Harry H. Corbett – Sam Hitchens, Alf’s dad
Avis Bunnage – Mary Hitchens, Alf’s mum
Michael Goodman – Joey Hitchens, Alf’s brother
Michael Ripper- The Common Man
Grazina Frame- Doris Hitchens, Alf’s sister
Monte Landis – Solly Gold
David Nott – The Boys
Barry Bethel – The Boys
Alan Klein – The Boys
Jessie Robins – The Fat Lady
Bill Fraser- Music publisher
Freddie and The Dreamers – Frantic Freddie & The Dreamers

The 60s Retrospective Series

Released December 1963 in the UK

The pop-exploitation film will be a sub-section here as I’ve just trawled amazon and bought a small pile of them. This one is of wider interest as it came just before A Hard Day’s Night, just a few months chronologically, but this one was already an anachronism on release. At the end of the film we see pop papers being printed to announce the release of the title track, and the headline is The Beatles. That’s a world away from the music here. This is the pre-Swinging London or maybe the anti-Swinging London.

The story of the production starts in 1962 when a young songwriter named ALAN Klein (NOT The Beatles / Rolling Stones manager ALLEN Klein) wrote What A Crazy World We’re Living In for Joe Brown. It was released in May 1962 and was a minor hit (UK #37). Alan Klein then wrote a musical based on the song, which was produced by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at Stratford East. It was well-received, and Klein had a choice … a West End musical or a film. He opted for the latter, and the film came out in December 1963, though the soundtrack album didn’t get out until early 1964. … just before A Hard Day’s Night.

The connection doesn’t stop there. The hit TV sitcom of 1962 and 1963 was Steptoe and Son with Harry H. Corbett (a graduate of the Theatre Workshop) and Wilfred Brambell. Harry H. Corbett took the role of the father in What A Crazy World while Wilfred Brambell took the role of grandad in A Hard Day’s Night. The difference in film profile and quality must have fuelled the two actors’ mutual loathing.

The thing about Joan Littlewood’s productions at the Theatre Workshop was that she liked musicals, but she had apparently never heard or liked any music written after 1955. She was after all married to Ewan MacColl (under his real name, Jimmy Miller) which would not have helped.

In 1959 The Theatre Workshop commissioned Frank Norman and Lionel Bart’s Cockney musical, Fings Ain’t What They Used To Be. Max Bygraves covered the title song with cleaned up lyrics. A soundtrack album was recorded by John Barry after its West End run with Adam Faith singing two songs. Its a direct predecessor.

Alan Klein’s songs for What A Crazy World were, according to him, a blend of music hall and rock ‘n’ roll. No, I don’t see any sign whatsoever of rock ‘n’ roll in any of them. It’s yer Cockney Pearly Kings and Queens on a knees-up.

Alan Klein: I thought, we can’t just go on singing about Kansas City … which I’d never been to. I’ve got to start writing about … what I see around me. I thought well, the way to do an English song is maybe I should think in terms of ukele chords, George Formby-type chord sequences, and that’s what I did with that one: tried to make it a bit more up to date.
Interview on Radio Merseyside, 2008

It also featured comedy / novelty lyrics – and some were good. In the review of The Small World of Sammy Lee, I mentioned the influence Anthony Newley, singing in a London accent, had on early David Bowie. Bowie could equally have quoted Tommy Steele, or Adam Faith, or  Joe Brown with What A Crazy World or Mike Sarne with Come Outside and Will I What  (Mike Sarne was approached to be in the play), but he didn’t quote them. Was Rock & Music Hall an aborted route for British rock ‘n’ roll with Tommy Steele as the founder member? Not really, though you can detect a similar humorous lyric in Ian Dury much later … Joe Brown grew up in Plaistow, later immortalised in Dury’s Plaistow Patricia..

Three stars will shine tonight …

The three stars are Joe Brown, Marty Wilde and Susan Maughan.

Joe Brown and Marty Wilde are still touring FIFTY-SEVEN years later in 2020 – I would have gone to see both were it not for lockdown. Both also had famous singing daughters in Sam Brown and Kim Wilde.

Joe Brown

Joe Brown hits 1960-63, What A Crazy World and Sally Ann feature in the movie. Note three Top Ten hits plus “UK Vocal Personality of 1962′

Joe Brown started his career as a guitarist in the TV session band for Boy Meets Girls and backed visiting US stars Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Ronnie Hawkins.  Ronnie Hawkins brought Levon Helm with him on drums:

Ronnie Hawkins: I didn’t think that the English cats would be able to play Memphis-style, but they were really into it. They even got the ‘boo-hoo’ in Southern Love. Joe Brown was part of the band. He was a young cockney kid with a brush haircut and I said, ‘Joe, with your accent and your looks you could be a real asset to my band. He decided to stay here (in Britain).Record Collector, January 1987

Joe Brown: Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent were great. We went on tour backing them, and also a guy called Ronnie Hawkins, who’s still around, a big star in Canada. He brought a drummer with him called Levon Helm, and they asked me to go back to Canada with them and join their band. I wish I had done.
Manchester Evening News 2013

The Band with Joe Brown? He was and is an outstanding guitarist. Pity he only gets to strum banjo in the film then. Like Tommy Steele he had one foot back in pre-60s Cockney songs … he recorded Jellied Eels and I’m Henry The Eighth I Am  (long before Herman’s Hermits).

I got my first three LPs for Christmas 1962 … Rock ‘n’ Roll No. 2 by Elvis, All The Hits By All The Stars (Cameo Parkway artistes) and A Picture Of You by Joe Brown. Joe Brown’s album was straight to mid-price label Golden Guinea, so 21/- instead of 32/6d for full price. It contained What A Crazy World We’re living In, the single, and also Layabout’s Lament, a full year before the film version by Marty Wilde.

Marty Wilde

Guinness Book of Hit Singles – sorry, the book was to thick to scan in the W section so a wonky photo.

It was his third film, and he’s pretty good too. Marty Wilde towers in height over his gang, The Boys, which included the screenwriter and songwriter of the whole thing, Alan Klein. In the film, Wilde’s appearance is more Ted (Teddy Boy) than 1963, and that reflects when he started singing. Marty had a good run of covers of American hits between 1957 and 1962. He usually beat the originals in the charts too. I bought his last hit before a long fallow patch, Ever Since You Said Goodbye in 1962.

Like Joe Brown, he was part of Larry Parnes’ management stable – Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Duffy Power, Dickie Pride, Johnny Gentle, Vince Eager, Nelson Keen, Georgie Fame. Larry chose the names. It is said he tried to name Joe Brown as ‘Elmer Twitch.’  In the business he was known as ‘Parnes, shillings and pence.’ Parnes was old school, like Solly Gold, the manager who appears in the film:

Vince Eager began to wonder why he had never received any record royalties. “You’re not entitled to any,” Larry Parnes told him. “But it says in my contract that I am,” Eager protested. “It also says I have power of attorney over you, and I’ve decided you’re not getting any,” Parnes replied.
Rockabilly magazine, 2019

That meant that like Billy Fury, Marty Wilde was assigned cover versions, though by the late 60s he was proving a first-rate songwriter.

Susan Maughan

More of Maughan (EP) has her two main hits: Bobby’s Girl and Hand A Hankerchief to Helen. Both covers of US hits.

Susan Maughan was best-known for her British hit cover of Marcie Blane’s Bobby’s Girl (UK #3 at Christmas 1962 … yes, I have the single too). She did a whole album with boys’ names. She was renowned for frothy petticoats (the hem of her skirt never got within 18 inches of her legs), powerful brassieres and a tiny tiny waist. I felt sorry for her in the film. She was from County Durham, and simply could not do the Mockney (stage Cockney) accent required for the part. It was a breeze for Joe Brown and Marty Wilde, in spite of the wildly over-the-top imagined barrow boy and costermonger dialogue: She ain’t not doin’ nuffink, eh, do she? She just sounds “not London” with a slight North-East edge.

Freddie & The Dreamers

So how did they get there? Someone (some old school promoter)  must have thought “We need some of this Merseybeat nonsense to look relevant” and in the absence of actual Liverpudlians, The Beatles, The Searchers, Gerry & The Pacemakers or Billy J. Kramer, they opted for this Mancunian novelty group. They appear at the dance as Frantic Freddie and The Dreamers. To be fair they had just had big hits, but they were already into their looning about comedy stage routine.

The actors

Harry H. Corbett and Avis Bunnage were both ex-Theatre Workshop people, and Avis Bunnage had been in the stage version, which had a six week run from 30 October to 15 December 1962. Three months later The Theatre Workshop did Oh, What A Lovely War. Corbett was only sixteen years older than “his son” Joe Brown. He gets major billing as Steptoe & Son was definitely the hot comedy of the year. Harry H. Corbett complained of being typecast for years, but there’s no doubt in this film he was cast to reprise his “Harold Steptoe” role right down to costume and vocal mannerisms.

Avis Bunnage has a memorable name, and was a stalwart of British theatre and film for years. She’s always brilliant.

‘The Boys’ who were Marty Wilde’s lads, were David Nott, Barry Bethel and Alan Klein. Klein wrote it and Barry Bethel had played Joe Brown’s lead role in the stage version.

Michael Ripper is credited as “The Common Man” and appears seven times as different characters, all distinguished and linked by his remarkably prominent bulging eyeballs. This was a great idea.

Jessie Robins was credited as “The Fat Lady.” Fat ladies were automatically very funny indeed – see the British seaside postcard. She went on to play Ringo’s auntie in Magical Mystery Tour as fat ladies had remained funny.

The director

Michael Carreras was the son of a director of Hammer Horror films, and a major Hammer Horror producer himself, hence when Alf and Marilyn go to the pictures, they’re watching Peter Cushing in The Curse of Frankenstein which he had produced.

The plot

As in the original song, the aim was to get “modern” stuff in … Bingo halls, Dances, Ten Pin Bowling and they succeeded.

It starts with The Common Man (Michael Ripper) hawking jewellery on a street corner and we move on to another “new” 60s thing, a launderette.

Herbie (Marty Wilde) is on his way to the Labour Exchange, only to find a line of, well, immigrants, in front of him claiming their dole (as it used to be called). This seems an incredible and racist scene for a left-wing organization like Theatre Workshop to be involved with! The guy behind the counter is … The Common Man. So the lad’s break into Layabout’s Lament.

The Labour Exchange. Full of foreigners?

They’re joined in the chorus by three comic Chinese coolies in the requisite hats and two dancing Italian waiters.

Oh, they’re taking filthy diabolical liberties
They’re flocking in as though they own the place
The bloke behind the counter’s gettin’ worried
Oh, yes, the smile’s disappearing from his face
Oh, it’s gettin’ like me mother’s bingo meetins’
Each member out to make a couple of bob
Our local labour exchange has gone to rack and ruin
So I reckon I’ll have to find myself a job
The Layabout’s Lament (Alan Klein)

Herbie (Marty Wilde) and “The Boys”

The next scene introduces Alf Hitchens (Joe Brown) at home with his dad, Sam, (Harry H. Corbett) and Mum (Avis Bunnage) and dad is accusing Alf of being a layabout. The clothes say it all. Alf in narrow tie and Italian suit (narrow lapels) and Sam in his Steptoe and Son uniform of  shirt with rolled up sleeves and neck scarf. Herbie had been wearing a working man’s donkey jacket. Alf has aspirations.

Alf (Joe Brown) and Sam (Harry H. Corbett)

The table has been carefully set- sliced bread eaten from the packet, bottle of brown sauce. This is a set designer’s idea of “teatime in a working class home 1963”.  A fry up will be followed by bread and jam. Alf is reading The Daily Mirror.

Avis Bunnage as Alf’s mum

Herbie and The doorman … how does Michael Ripper get his eyes to do that?

Meanwhile, Herbie and the lads are off arguing with a doorman, The Common Man that they’d already been in and out. Herbie has a 1950s Teddy Boy drape jacket.

Alf has a younger brother, Joey (Michael Goodman) and an older sister, Doris (Grazina Frame). Both are more successful with the opposite sex than Alf, who has a more tentative relationship with his girlfriend Marilyn (Susan Maughan).

The Hitchins Family: Alf (Joe Brown), Joey (Michael Goodman) and Doris (Grazina Frame)

Joey gets to sing a song to rub it in I Sure Know A Lot About Love. Doris has a seedy boyfriend (in 1963 a moustache signalled that) and he comes round when dad’s at the greyhound racing and mum’s at the bingo. Doris starts a song Bruvvers and Joey and Alf join in. The Bruvvers was Joe’s backing group, and the song is a blatant rip-off, or to be kinder, send-up, of The Beverley Sisters signature song Sisters.

Alf goes out for the evening, leaving Doris awaiting her boyfriend. Alf and Herbie meet up in an amusement arcade, peering into a What The Butler Saw penny machine with a faded film of an Edwardian stripper. The lads start shaking the penny machines to manipulate them to the fury of the proprietor … yes, the Common Man again. Bloody kids! is his catchphrase.

Herbie is setting his character. Quiff, drape jacket and studded boots.

Then they’re off to a café where they run into Marilyn. She gets to sing Alfred Hitchins. I always liked her as a singer, but the material is not Bobby’s Girl which enabled her to be effervescent and bubbly.

Marilyn (Susan Maughan)

Next comes the dance  at the British Legion hall. The band is Frantic Freddie & The Dreamers performing Camp Town Races. They’re wearing what looks like salvation Army hats for no apparent reason. There were aspects of this I loved … the 60s dancing, the hair styles. Not the music, but be thankful for small mercies. At least they didn’t play Do The Freddie. 

Herbie and Alfie spot a pretty blonde girl and it’s the timeworn routine when there were a pair of girls together … I fancy mine, but I don’t think much of yours.

Herbie and Alf discuss the girls

Herbie: The nearest you been to a bird is a boiled egg.

Alf gets to dance with the blonde and Herbie has to dance with the friend with bottle thick glasses and buck teeth. 1963 was irretrievably sexist. But this was true. Been there. Done that. Both these singers have personality that comes across and both are good.

Freddie and The Dreamers do a bit of Sally Ann – Joe’s hit record from the film – then decide to do the Royal Teens Short Shorts, a US#3 hit five years earlier. It was written by future Four Seasons writer and member Bob Gaudio. This version is truly weird. Freddie takes off his trousers to reveal bright boxers, then goes round pulling everyone’s trousers down. I have seen Rufus Wainwright do this to his band in 2005, though Rufus had much less voluminous underwear in a stars and stripes pattern.

Short Shorts: Do the band look as if they’re enjoying it as much as Freddie obviously is? I love the bass guitarist’s expression. Add the balding rhythm guitarist.Some bands look cool. Some could never look cool.

What happens is a fight breaks out, which fortunately curtails Freddie’s antics. Fights were frequent at such events. I saw many back in the day. Asking the wrong girl to dance … bumping into someone … spilling a drink … staring at someone. And off it went.  That leads to Alf and Herbie singing What A Handsome Punch Up. 

Joe back at home has had an idea for a song, takes out his banjo and starts on What A Crazy World We’re Living In.

Joe meets Marilyn and they catch a bus. She gets off by Cleopatra’s Needle and sings a wistful Please Give Me A Chance while the director does his pre-rock video shots with lions and steps and the view.

Please Give Me A Chance. Susan Maughan as Marilyn. With Sphinx.

Alf is off to Denmark Street … Britain’s music row. You can see how old school the whole concept is because he’s visiting sheet music publishers NOT record labels.

The music publisher (Bill Fraser).

He’s getting rejections, including one from Bill Fraser (Sergeant-Major Snudge in The Army Game) because British films liked to pop sitcom stars in wherever possible. The scene involves his secretary, and he’s sexually excited when he discovers she’s reading The Carpetbaggers and retreats to his office to have it read aloud. You have to say Alan Klein had met a few of these people!

Independence

At the end of the street, Alf runs into two of the “Boys” who have got a proper job painting railings. Fortuitously, the Bruvvers are unloading their van just up the street, which means they can back Alf singing Independence. It’s rare for this kind of film to explain the presence of backing musicians in a street (or desert) but this one does.

Joe chats to the secretary at the next publisher and gets a job as a bike messenger boy delivering sheet music. This one is called Solly Gold (Monte Landis) and as far as ethnic stereotyping goes, they might have as well called him Solly Shylock.

I Feel The Same Way Too: Susan Maughan. Note the waist size with Waspie and formidable brassiere.

He meets Marilyn in the park thus allowing a duet on I Feel The Same Way Too. Back at the office, Alf hits upon a cunning plan. He switches the open reel tape about to go into Solly’s office with a copy of What A Crazy World We’re Living In which (mumble mumble, somehow … got recorded … mumble). Solly plays it to two late middle-aged executives in suits. They all love it! As well they might. it sounds twenty years out of date.

Solly Gold (Monte Lantis)

At this point the plot diverts, and we have a few  images of the time. Alf and Marilyn go ten-pin bowling. She’s not sure that their off/on relationship is going anywhere. And we never find out.

They’ve turned our local Palais, into a bowling alley … anyone recall ‘Fings Ain’t What They Used To Be’?

This was really new and exciting in Britain in 1963.  It leapt out as a reminder of Fings Ain’t What They Used To Be

It’s not over until the fat lady wins (Jessie Robins)

Then we see mum (Avis Bunnage) and her friend at the bingo hall, where the fat lady wins. The bingo caller apologises to her for his 88 call (“Two fat ladies”).

Sam’s at the greyhound racing with his pals bemoaning the state of youth today.

Note Alf’s pre-sewn three point pocket hankie on card.We all had them.

Alf and Marilyn are at the pictures watching a (Michael Carreras) horror film starring Peter Cushing. They get angry with The Common Man who is sitting behind them slurping ice cream and following their conversation, and leave.

I have the feeling that the aim was to illustrate the “crazy world” lyrics in a series of scenes before we get to images of record pressing, juke boxes, New Musical Express headlines, a smiling Solly who has graduated from cigarette in hand to a fat cigar. It is a hit.

Family reaction to Alf’s hit single

The final scene is excellent and very funny. A proud Alf takes the record home to play to his family, and all is drowned out by them all shouting and yelling at each other while he’s playing it.

During the credits, the entire cast take lines of the song in a range of locations, then end up in the street in a stage curtain call line up.

Overall

It was better than I expected or remembered from the time. Back in 1964, I would have been too sniffy about the admittedly very retro melodies and lyrics, though I fear the racism and sexism inherently there in some scenes, let alone “sizeism.” may not have leapt out as it does today.  Susan Maughan simply couldn’t act at all, but it doesn’t matter that much. Marty Wilde kind of drops out of the story by half way. Joe Brown has star quality.

It is “BB” – Before The Beatles in concept, but at least it HAS a musical concept, and next to Larry Parnes’ artists previous film venture, Play It Cool in 1962, it’s positively modern. It’s far better.

Looking up the film online, it’s surprisingly well-rated, so much so that it has a smart blu-ray edition with notes … we watched the much cheaper DVD, but picture quality was still very good, as it tends to be with 60s black and white British films.

The soundtrack

There are bits all over the place. First is the 1964 LP:

What A Crazy World – Joe Brown & The Bruvvers & Marty Wilde
A Layabout’s Lament – Joe Brown & Marty Wilde
I Sure Know A Lot About Love- Michael Goodman
Bruvvers – Grazina, Joe Brown & Michael Goodman
Oh, What A Family – Joe Brown & Marty Wilde
Alfred Hitchins – Susan Maughan
Sally Ann – Joe Brown & The Bruvvers
Wasn’t It A Handsome Punch Up – Joe Brown & Marty Wilde
Please Give Me A Chance- Susan Maughan
Independence- – Joe Brown & The Bruvvers & Marty Wilde
I Feel The Same Way Too – Joe Brown & Susan Maughan
Just You Wait & See – Joe Brown
Things We Never Had / Reprise What A Crazy World- Harry H. Corbett

Sally Ann was the single:

Sally Ann (my original copy)

Then Freddie and The Dreamers put out their own EP, also featuring Sally Ann which had just been a hit for Joe Brown. This is 1963. While the Pye Group (Joe Brown’s label) and Philips Group (Marty Wilde, Susan Maughan’s label) co-operated to release the LP. EMI’s Columbia label stayed separate.

Track list:
Sally Ann
Camp Town Races
Lonely Boy (Paul Anka)
Short Shorts (Bob Gaudio)

POP EXPLOITATION FILMS

The Young Ones (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Help! (1965)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Performance (1970)