Review for The Amorous Prawn

Despite its oblique title (it’s never clear what on earth this means), ‘The Amorous Prwan’ is actually a very decent British stage farce, very effectively transferred to film. It boasts a stellar British cast which includes Dennis Price, Ian Carmichael , Cecil Parker Joan Greenwood, Liz Fraser, Finlay Currie, and a young Derek Nimmo, as well as many others you’ll recognise. It’s all shot in that rather cosy mid-1950’s black and white (despite this being released in 1962) and will be a welcome addition to any self-respecting period British film comedy fan’s collection.


Which is not to suggest that it’s one of the best. It isn’t. It’s not a patch on the best Ealing or Boulting brother’s comedies, but it’s not half bad either. Well, it has that amazing cast for starters and a very impressive score by John Barry to boot.


‘The Amorous Mr. Prawn’ started out as an incredibly popular farcical play by Anthony Kimmins which ran for over 900 performances. Kimmins actually directed this film version too, with its slightly shortened (and baffling) title.


Joan Greenwood plays a bumptious general's wife (opposite a long-suffering Cecil Parker) who is determined that, in readiness for her husband’s retirement from the Army, that they should buy their dream-cottage, only to find that they’re a few quid short. So when he leaves for an extended period of duty, she conspires with the staff of their gorgeous home in the Scottish highland (all good Army men and women) to take in American lodgers who are looking for the opportunity to fish for Salmon during a very over-subscribed season.


At first the staff (including the General’s batman, played by Ian Carmichael using a very untypical working-class Northern accent, and a saucy young Liz Fraser), are outraged at the plan, code-named ‘Operation Lolly’, but when they realise the General’s wife is more than happy to share the spoils, and is also more than prepared to send them back to standard drill if they don’t comply, they join in, playing their parts in turning the military home into a top-class hotel for the guests.

Cpl. Sidney Green: (Ian Carmichael) This being a military establishment, maintained, as it were, by the War Office and we being military personnel, serving her Majesty the Queen, it would seem... Lady Dodo Fitzadam (Joan Greenwood): Yes Corporal?

Cpl. Sidney Green: Well, it would seem that some people - my Member of Parliament for instance - might ask awkward questions if he found out that Headquarters North-Western District were being used for strawberry teas for trippers.

Lady Dodo Fitzadam: I have no intention of serving strawberry teas to trippers but I see your point, so I'm afraid I'll have no alternative but to return all surplus staff to full parade ground duty...



Naturally the General is the last to know so when he returns home to find his house full of Americans, pure farce unfolds, though it isn’t long before he too is implicated in the scheme and has to resort to bribery to convince a Minister not to shop him (played by Dennis Price).

It’s all fairly standard fun though I was shocked to see a scene that seems to have got past the censors of the day (who didn’t have pause controls as they do now) to see a kilted soldier make his way in to a building via a sky-light, revealing his genitalia in full before his descent. How odd!
Interestingly, in the US the film was retitled ‘The Playgirl and the War Minister’ to exploit the Profumo Affair, although anyone who went to see it must have been disappointed that it had about as much do with that as it did an amorous prawn!


The image quality throughout is stunning though it would have been nice to have seen a high definition transfer. As far as DVD’s go though, this was top notch.
The disc ships with an image gallery and a PDF with some theatrical (printable) promotional material.


‘The Amorous Prawn’ may not be the best film you see this year, but it’s certainly a fun one and worth just short of 90 minutes worth of anyone’s time, particularly on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Collectors of period British comedy films will be glad to have it in their collection.