Leofwine_draca GASBAGS is a film outing for The Crazy Gang, a bunch of middle aged men who delighted British audiences with their silly, slapstick humour during the 1940s. This one also manages to be a propaganda effort that spends the whole time having a laugh at the Nazis. The preposterous plotting involves a fish and chip van which is accidentally transported to Nazi Germany, where our heroes must attempt to escape. Unfortunately I found this very difficult to sit through, let alone enjoy. The humour is of the most juvenile ever, the actors go way over the top in the line of duty, and only the occasional decent song and bit-part actor (Wally Patch, Irene Handl) make it the least bit watchable.

Paularoc I had heard of the Crazy Gang and that this movie was quite the morale booster for the British in the dark days of the war. I wanted to like this movie but just didn't. Perhaps in part it was the generally poor print quality of the tape I was watching. I have read that some disliked this movie because there is nothing funny about World War II or Hitler. For me, this wasn't the issue but rather that the plot was just too wacky, zany and frenetic. I couldn't keep track of all the characters and it all seem like a jumbled mess. A previous reviewer mentioned the Three Stooges. Each of the Stooges had a distinct personality unlike the Crazy Gang where it was hard for me to tell one from the other. As a youngster in the fifties, I grew up with the Stooges on Saturday morning television. I remember them very fondly – of course I was a kid. The Crazy Gang just didn't resonate with me. That said, I will still probably give them another look-see given how popular they were in their day.

ScenicRoute I am deleting after 49 minutes out of 77. You should stop earlier or not watch at all. The song, Yesterday's Dream is sweet, but everything else about this movie is preposterous and not funny. I guess it cheered up some kind of Brit, but it deserves the 1 star I saw it receive. Not a woman in sight, and these guys are all over each other in the broadest hammiest slapstick that doesn't work given the gravity of the subject matter. And it is really low budget, with the air scenes silly in an almost fascinating way. So if you have an interest in British low-comedy, this is the show for you. Otherwise, hit the delete button much sooner than 49 minutes - shame on me for thinking this movie could not be as bad as that 1-star indicated. Sometimes the mainstream critics are right.

boblipton This wartime farce concerns the Crazy Gang -- you may think of them as a precursor of the 'Carry On' series, if you like -- who get involved in World War Two, which for them means running a fish and chips shop off a barrage balloon, floating accidentally into Germany, being interned in a concentration camp, acting as Hitler doubles and escaping. Don't worry if it makes no sense, it's the Crazy Gang, meaning about eight music hall performers taking every opportunity to engage in pratfalls, puns, cowardice and risqué jokes. The Crazy Gang starred in something short of a dozen movies in the late 1930s and early 1940s, a sort of all-star supporting comics' series.The director of this and other movies in the series was French-born Marcel Varnel, a specialist in high-speed farce for Gaumont and Gainsborough until his untimely death. When he worked with Will Hays and his group of comics -- Moore Marriott appeared in both series -- he produced some very fine situational farces. Here, in this looser-plotted work, with every comic fighting for screen time, the result is something that would have been a very popular home film in Britain, but which does not, alas, travel well in time or space to a modern American viewer like me.