Tim (Cliff Richard) is a successful ambitious young financier working for a London Merchant bank, but even his happy-go-lucky attitude is severely jolted when he is sent to Birmingham instead of his promised New York for his posting! But comedy reigns when the enterprising bank manager helps an unsuccessful Birmingham restaurant compete with its rivals by introducing a new fast food - the Brumburger!
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Reviews
To me, this movie is perfection.
Such a frustrating disappointment
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
This is not the best known of Cliff Richard's films, but personally I like it very much. Cliff plays an ambitious young businessman helping a girl who lives on a narrow-boat to start her own restaurant. Deborah Watling is charming as the young chef, and George Cole and Hugh Griffith provide strong comic support, with Anthony Andrews suitably suave as Cliff's rival. The songs are good, especially the title song Take Me High. The most striking thing about the film though is the Birmingham location, i don't think there are many films set in Birmingham, and I imagine very few musicals, possibly this film is unique in that respect. Birmingham is not the most picturesque of cities, but this film shows it in quite an attractive light, especially the canal scenes. Altogether this is a charming film.
Essentially an extended music video clip for Cliff Richards. Richards is a merchant banker who is moved to Birmingham and what follows is a montage of the brutalist concrete architecture that made Birmingham worse, and shots of flyovers before they were covered in tags and vomit.George Cole is there and there's a famous scene of shooting the television set. Later there is a 1980s direct-to-video film style plot line where Richards and his girlfriend plan to open a burger bar selling "Brumburgers". There's quite a lot of embarrassed people in the street scene, as if having to live in Birmingham wasn't punishment enough ! Product placement - BOAC airlines.
By any measure this is a very cheesy film, but it's so harmless and wholesome you can't really take umbrage with it. Based around the jewel of the British Waterways, the Gas Street basin it offers a fascinating historical insight into this very special area of Birmingham. Sort of film you can enjoy as long as you restrict watching it to, say, every ten years or so.It's a pity that it has yet to be released on a modern format as I know many Brummies would enjoy just watching the film for the shots around the City. A City which has changed much, Take me High provides a good visual snap shot of the capitol of the British Midlands just before it's decline as a light industrial engineering world centre.During Cliffs tenure on his canal boat in the Gas Street basin he would have had a neighbour in the fictional Wilf Harvey popular elderly Crossroads character who lived on dry land adjacent to the canals.
While his 60s films fit in with the juvenile delinquent and teenage beach movies of the time, this one keeps up with those fans who were now in their 20s. Another romantic comedy with a memorable music score and set in the UK's second city, Cliff now has an office job but he's still a bachelor.It would be a dozen years before Cliff would do the Dave Clark musical TIME in the West End (no longer in the office but a rock star) followed 10 years later by his version of Wuthering Heights. The musical Heathcliff was a life-long ambition of Cliff's (and he played the married, then widowed seriously misunderstood man quite well). TIME was never released in video format but Heathcliff was. Take Me High is also available on video. His voice only got better, so you can't go wrong with any of these releases.