Even before the opening credits, you can tell 1959’s I’m All Right Jack is going to be an odd duck. We are introduced to an old man complaining about being woken from his nap by the revelry outside, which just happens to be public euphoria over WWII ending. A narrator informs us we will never hear about this man again…and we don’t.
Next, we get opening credits over a series of cartoon stills which had me wondering whether any or all of these would be representative of the movie. We see, among other things, a naked woman with a butterfly net chasing a naked man, a man (presumably the same) apparently leaving the army and heeding the call of industry, two men at the controls of weird forklift/bumper-car hybrids, a man timing a turtle with a stopwatch and, finally, a bewildered man wearing only what appears to be a fig leaf at waist height.
True to what is suggested in the first and last illustrations in those credits, we open on a nudist camp. Given the time it was made, it is a rather chaste “naturalist” camp. Still, this is a UK movie, so it does have quite a few bare female backsides.
A character in a chair with its back to us is revealed to be our protagonist, played by Ian Carmichael. It will also be revealed he is wearing a suit and tie. He is conversing with his uncle (who is apparently in the buff) about his intention to go into industry, and he believes he should do so as an executive.
In a humorous sequence of brief scenes, he proves himself too honest to hold down a job anywhere. The best of these is at a factory that produces snack cakes. In a surprisingly prescient comment on processed food, the machines at each step of production each have a different “face” of lights and other features, and each vomits out liquid to be used in the next step. It is hilarious and surprisingly gross for the time. In the end, Carmichael ends up accidentally contributing his own ingredient to the mix when he is overwhelmed with nausea.
There are other subversive messages slyly worked throughout this picture. Some interesting potshots at advertising include a billboard for a detergent that contains a new “black whitener”. A subplot comments on the prioritization of profit over morals when arms deals are concerns. And when our hero finally lands a place at factory, courtesy of a wealthy uncle, the movie finds both labor organizers and management to be worthwhile targets.
Peter Sellers plays the union steward and, while he is quite good in this role, I didn’t find this performance to be as legendary as some UK reviewers make it out to be. That said, he adds some interesting touches, such as mispronouncing words while making haughty announcements, and never realizing his faux pas. I liked how we says words like “revelant” without the slightest pause. It takes some real insight into the character to deliver a performance like this. I also love the title of a book he recommends to Carmichael: Collective Childhood and Factory Manhood.
Even an obligatory love scene is fodder for satire, as Carmichael woos the daughter of Sellers (Liz Fraser) in a car and she asks him a sensitive question, that being: “Are those your own teeth?” She’s so impressed when he answers in the affirmative. As they embrace, the camera pans over to a clearing with only a sign in it that reads “rubbish not to be shot here.”
There’s a lot I liked here. Like many movies that resonate with me, it is little things and not so much an intriguing storyline overline. Things like how our hero, is the only happy person entering the factory. Or a friend he makes at work commenting, “We’ve not had a work stoppage for ages. Not since the week before last.” Or what about the stuttering guy who is always on the verge of saying something obscene: “Why doesn’t he go fuh-fuh-fuh-photograph something else?”
I only learned after the fact that I’m All Right Jack is a sequel to 1956’s Private’s Progress. That film seems to be more difficult to find at this time, but I look forward to becoming acquainted with it once it comes to blu-ray. But you definitely don’t have to see the first movie before seeing the second, and I do recommend you see the latter film.
Dir: John Boulting
Starring Ian Carmichael, Peter Sellers, Liz Frasier
Watched on Studiocanal UK blu-ray (region B)