CUCUMBER CASTLE (1970) – Eight years before the Bee Gees embarrassed themselves on the big screen with a horrible movie forcing a storyline to the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band they embarrassed themselves on the small screen forcing a storyline to their own album Cucumber Castle.
Well sort of. Mostly they just appropriated the title of their song and album Cucumber Castle and fixated on the word “castle” to provide the premise of this 54-minute film made for British television.
Lulu, Spike Milligan, Vincent Price and many more show up in the supporting cast. Sammy Davis, Jr.’s scenes were cut. Or were removed under threats from Sammy’s pal Frank Sinatra. Not so lucky was Eleanor Bron. I can say no more. (See what I did there?)
The musical misfire was directed by Hugh Gladwish … the director of THE GHOST GOES GEAR (1966), reviewed last week here at Balladeer’s Blog. Barry and Maurice Gibb are the credited writers, however, so the “comedy” sketches are only sometimes as bad as those in the 1966 theatrical movie.
Cucumber Castle is so awful that not being in it was presumably brother Robin Gibb’s greatest professional triumph. He had recently left the Bee Gees in a huff to try a solo career, and little Andy Gibb was only twelve years old, so Barry and Maurice, who also produced, were left holding the whoopie cushion bag.
In a fairytale land resembling Elizabethan England, a king (comedian Frankie Howerd) is on his deathbed. Barry Gibb plays Prince Frederick and Maurice plays Prince Marmaduke, the king’s sons.
Not only does Howerd resemble Mel Brooks but his intentionally hammy performance as the dying monarch would fit right into a Brooks comedy. And Peter Blythe’s opening narration contained a couple of reasonably funny jokes, so I briefly dared to hope that this telefilm might be better than its reputation.
That was The First Mistake I Made, to force in the title of a Bee Gees song. Continue reading
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