The_Square_Peg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paddy_Carstairs
John Paddy CarstairsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Square_Peg
The Square Peg is a 1958 British comedy film starring Norman Wisdom and directed by John Paddy Carstairs.[1] Norman Wisdom plays two different characters: a man who digs and repairs roads and a Nazi General.

Synopsis[edit]In the early days of World War II, Norman Pitkin, a roadmender with St Godric's Borough Council, falls foul of the soldiers in an army camp, when his handiwork slows down access to the camp. Despite the efforts of Borough Engineer, Mr Grimsdale, the army has both of them called up for army service. They find themselves in the Pioneer Corps, doing much the same sort of work.




The two are posted to France, but mistakenly end up behind German lines. Grimsdale is captured by German soldiers and taken to local headquarters in a chateau. Meanwhile, Pitkin has wandered into the nearby town, but doesn't notice soldiers standing to attention and saluting him. It transpires that he's a double of the local commander, General Schreiber. In a cafe, he recognises the waitress as Lesley, an ATS officer he had briefly met in training camp. She is in fact an undercover agent working with the local resistance group, but Pitkin inadvertently blows her cover and she's arrested, along with the cafe owner.

Pitkin and Henri, another resistance worker, break into the chateau, using a tunnel that Pitkin digs, but they too are captured. Pitkin comes face-to-face with Schreiber and finally realises his chance. To keep up the deception, he has a tryst with Gretchen, the general's mistress - a singer of Wagnerian proportions - and comically attempts to sing Schubert lieder with her.




Pitkin/Schreiber manages to release the prisoners, who escape through the tunnel, but Pitkin is caught and sentenced to be shot at dawn. As the execution is about to be carried out, he escapes through the same tunnel and runs back to the Allied lines.



At war's end, all have survived and peace returns to the Council offices. Grismdale is still Borough Engineer, but Pitkin is now the mayor.










Jump to: navigation, search John Paddy Carstairs (born John Keys) (11 May 1910, London – 12 December 1970, London) was a British film director (1933–62) and television director (1962–64), usually of light-hearted subject matter. He was also a comic novelist and painter.[1]



The son of Nelson Keys, Carstairs changed his name in order to avoid the appearance of nepotism.[2] He directed 37 films in total. He had a long association with the character of Simon Templar (the character's creator, Leslie Charteris, dedicated the 1963 book, The Saint in the Sun to Carstairs). Aside from directing the 1939 Saint film, The Saint in London, he also directed two episodes of The Saint in the 1960s, making him the only individual (other than Charteris himself) to be connected to both the Hollywood film and British series of The Saint.
Select bibliography[edit]Honest Injun (1942)


Hadn't We the Gaiety (1945)

Kaleidoscope and a Jaundiced Eye (1946)

Filmography[edit]   It's a Boy (1933, screenwriter)

Paris Plane (1933)

Holiday's End (1937)

Double Exposures (1937)

Night Ride (1937)

Missing, Believed Married (1937)

Incident in Shanghai (1938)

Lassie from Lancashire (1938)

The Saint in London (1939)

All Hands (1940)

Meet Maxwell Archer (1940)

Now You're Talking (1940)

The Second Mr. Bush (1940)

Dangerous Comment (1940)

Telefootlers (1941)

He Found a Star (1941)

Spare a Copper (1941)

Dancing with Crime (1947)

Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

Fools Rush In (1949)

The Chiltern Hundreds (1949)

Tony Draws a Horse (1950)

Talk of a Million (1951)

Made in Heaven (1952)

Treasure Hunt (1952)

Top of the Form (1953)

Trouble in Store (1953)

Up to His Neck (1954)

One Good Turn (1955)

Man of the Moment (1955)

Jumping for Joy (1956)

Up in the World (1956)

Just My Luck (1957)

The Big Money (1958)

The Square Peg (1959)

Tommy the Toreador (1959)

Sands of the Desert (1960)

A Weekend with Lulu (1961)

The Devil's Agent (1962)