Norman Puckle, a well-meaning but clumsy grocer's assistant, can't seem to do anything right. After being rejected by Marlene, the love of his life, he attempts suicide, but can't even do that. He is saved from jumping off a cliff at 'Lover's Leap' by a Royal Navy petty officer. He persuades Puckle to join the Royal Navy, where he'll meet 'lots of girls'. Life in the Navy proves not to be as rosy as it's been described, and Puckle fails at every task during basic training. But despite this, he's regarded by the Admiral in charge of a rocket project to be a 'typical average British sailor', and chosen to be the first man to fly into outer space in an experimental rocket.
Similar titles
Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
It is a performances centric movie
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Entertaining but disjointed star farce in which Norman joins the Navy after being jilted by the girl of his dreams; in fact, the plot takes in all of the following and more: a scuffle outside a cinema (one of the bullies who beat up Wisdom is none other than Oliver Reed!), several hilarious attempts at suicide (by far the best scenes in the film), the star doing conjuring tricks, some rather silly shipboard shenanigans (as when Norman throws the entire crew overboard), an amusing court-martial sequence (featuring John Le Mesurier as the Prosecutor), a lengthy mountain-climbing episode and even a climax which sends the star into outer space! The film's trick effects utilize some crudely effective animation, and a reliable supporting cast highlights Ian Hunter (as the ship's Admiral), David Lodge (usually the brunt of Wisdom's antics), Edward Chapman (as the inventor of the rocket) and Liz Fraser (from the delightful Peter Sellers vehicles I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK! [1959] and TWO WAY STRETCH [1960]).
I didn't think much of THE BULLDOG BREED simply because I don't think much of Norman Wisdom . When you've seen one of his comedies you've basically seen them all . The jokes are corny and predictable and usually revolve around coincidence and misunderstanding . Suppose to were to throw an anchor off a pier what's the chances of a speed boat passing at the same time ? If you threw an anchor of a pier a thousand times I doubt if you'd hit one single boat passing , same as if you threw rubbish overboard from a ship whats the chances that your commanding officer would be berthed alongside ? Yeah I know you're not supposed to think about it but the comedy stretches credibility and shows itself to be unsophisticated There is another problem this movie and that is that it doesn't have a cohesive plot . Think about it , by an unlikely series of events Norman joins the navy but then the location switches to a climbing expedition then later on the story revolves around a journey in to outer space . It's as if the writers had several under developed ideas for a story then not knowing what to do with them tried to piece them together which gives the movie a very episodic feel Despite these criticisms THE BULLDOG BREED remains one of Wisdom's most watchable movies simply because it features so many well known faces from television such as a couple of long running cast members from CORONATION STREET not to mention a couple of uncredited appearances from future film stars Oliver Reed and Michael Caine
Grocer delivery boy Norman Puckle is frustrated in his attempts to et a local girl and tries to kill himself. However he is saved at the last minute and told that to join the navy is to get all the girls he'll ever want. However Norman is not a sea-faring man by trade and struggles with the disciplined lifestyle required. Things are made worse when The Admiral selects him for an experimental rocket as proof that any sailor could operate it given the proper training. He hadn't planned on Norman.Wisdom is very much an acquired taste. I'm not an Albanian but I do still enjoy most of his films. Here the plot sees him as, wait for it, a lowly worker who makes good, gets the girl and shows up the toffs at the same time! So not a mile (or a yard) away from the usual fare then. But that's fine, the usual stuff is actually OK. Here his usual routines are mostly OK but some are just average. If you usually get a laugh from it then this will just about suffice.Wisdom is good and has a strong support cast. However the problem is that it feels too heavily on his shoulders and the rest aren't used well enough to share the load. When you've got actors like Hunter, Chapman, Jones, Alexander and the ever great Le Mesurier then you need to use them. Most have the odd good line or two but I wanted more from all of them.The comedy is basic and times and you know where it's heading from minute number 1! I'm a fan and found this to be amusing but not Wisdom's best by any means. If this is your first meeting with Wisdom then you may be disappointed, fans will enjoy it.
Norman Wisdom is- in all of his films- very human. The puppy-dog eagerness, willingness to do anything set before him, ability to make a mistake and then go on to make it worse- are, of course, the very stuff of the comic character that he sets up for us to laugh at. But his genius lies in the ability to make us identify with him, to 'live the life' with him, even as we guffaw.In the Bulldog Breed there are stock characters aplenty, and the players act their roles accordingly, but Wisdom- like a wicked imp- seems to dodge and dart round the convention & hierarchy that still- in 1960- characterized much of the English way of doing things. He is like the benign counterpart of a poltergeist: causing disruption, certainly, but not as an alien or supernatural incursion, rather a human intervention into a stiff and inhuman environment. The sequence in which he gets a whole ship's crew into the water is an excellent example of this.One thing that often goes unremarked in Wisdom's films is the sexual presence there. There is almost always some lubricious lovely in the line-up and, in this case, Wisdom (after some other amorous adventures) ends up on the beach with a girl in a grass skirt, being told to 'carry on'. By contemporary standards what is there is so laughably little that it seems distinctly odd to regard it as 'sex interest' but, in historical context, it is definitely that, and as much a part of the humour as 'dirty postcards' were a part of the English seaside holiday of the time.Bear in mind, by the way, that in the years running up to the first moon-landing, this film is also a comment on Britain's presence in space!