Herman's New Film - A Musical Comedy

WHEN Trevor Peacock wrote "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" the song sold in the millions around the world - and no doubt took pride of place in the record collections of any Brown family who had an attractive daughter. But the story does not end there - in fact it seems that there's a far more attractive girl around, because in the film version of "Mrs. Brown," Judy Brown doesn't get her man.
    HERMAN'S HERMITS have been filming at Shepperton Studios since May 1, and LEK LECKENBY tells me: "Originally we were supposed to spend two weeks in Manchester, but they've cut out the locations there and it'll all be filmed in the studios and around London. The film is supposed to take ten weeks to complete, but if we haven't finished it by July 10 we'll be off on our American tour and will have to come back and complete it in September.

52 SCRIPTS
    "Trevor Peacock who wrote the original song also wrote the original script. Then it was transformed by an American - Norman Van. But the dialogue became too Americanised so he came over to England and both he and Trevor worked together on the finished script . . . and after 52 scripts we're alright!"
    Without revealing any secrets - and there are supposed to be several surprising angles to the film - Lek was able to give me a basic rundown on the plot.

MANCHESTER
    "We're five guys from Manchester with different jobs. We're all friends and we're all cheesed off with what we're doing so we unite, get a group going and travel to London. Pete's (Herman's) got a girl in Manchester, but he's not interested in her at the start because he doesn't want to get involved. In London he meets another bird called Judy Brown (Sarah Caldwell) and we go to work for her father as barrow boys. In the evening we play in the group - but because Pete's infatuated with Judy Brown he doesn't turn up to a club and we get the sack. Disillusioned, we all go back to Manchester and Pete ends up with his original girl friend (Sheila White).

A TRAMP
    Stanley Holloway and Mona Washbourne play Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Lance Percival is a tramp who appears all through the picture.
    "To me, every scene's funny. It's a musical comedy. I think we come out funny. Peter has a lot of graft to do, all the work - and I'm impressed by the way he's doing it.
    "We've all got canvas seats with our names on them and the kind trick is to hold a lighter under a
 

HERMAN'S HERMITS - here's the story
of the plot of their latest film.

seat while someone's sitting in it. Karl's kingpin at that. He uses a big stick, about six foot long, so he doesn't get hammered when he's played the trick on somebody. The first time it was done it happened to Barry. Afterwards he sat down for a while and I could see him thinking. Then he tried it on Karl - but Karl wasn't sitting on a canvas seat and the whole thing caught fire. It was the Sound Engineer's seat and he didn't like it.
    "We have practical jokes every day now - that was the start of it. When we were in Covent Garden everyone was throwing gooseberries at each other and the director was doing his nut. Fruit was flying everywhere. But it was taken in good fun because everyone in the unit are great guys and easy to get on with.

SPAGHETTI
    "The worst part of the film for us takes place when we go back to Pete's house and find the tramp there and eat spaghetti. The stuff was uneatable and we had to look as if we were enjoying it. Especially Karl who was supposed to be a glutton. We had to do this scene several times and it was dreadful. Once, when they were doing a close-up of Barry eating it he suddenly ran off the set and puked. We asked them for a different spaghetti and though they changed it, it was the same brand.
    Some Italian film producer must have left it behind. They must have had it in the prop room for ten years. Spaghetti was one of my favourites, but I've been put off it for life now. Poor old Lance Percival, he had about ten scenes with the stuff.

CARNABY ST.
    "As the tramp he wears Mod gear. Carnaby Street stuff, all ripped up. I saw him in the canteen, and he was putting soup on his jacket and rubbing it in to make it more tramplike."
    Sounds as if the film will be fun. Incidentally, Lek mentioned that when The Hermits went for a Medical because of the film's insurance - Stanley Holloway was fitter than all five boys - and he's over 73!

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