Trouble in Store

After World War II drew to a close, a diminutive, energetic British army signal corpsman named Norman Wisdom heeded the encouragement given by those he put in hysterics at servicemen's benefits and turned to entertainment as a career. Although already thirty years old when he chose his vocation, he's since spent the balance of his life building and burnishing a reputation as one of his homeland's iconic comic figures. The post-war decade saw him become a regular presence on stage and television, so much so that the Rank Organization signed him to a seven-picture deal. The first project under the contract, Trouble in Store (1953), was an immediate success, establishing an instantly identifiable screen persona and franchise formula that would serve him well into the '60s. The film introduced the everyman character Wisdom referred to as "the Gump," a likable if chronic loser readily identified by his ill-fitting, tatty wardrobe and perpendicularly billed cap. The scenario for Trouble in Store cast him as a stock boy for a prominent London department store, possessed of the lofty ambition of making window dresser someday. It doesn't take him long to get off on the wrong foot with the store's officious new general manager Freeman (Jerry Desmonde), and winds up with a week to clean out his locker. Freeman recants when Norman's virtues are praised by the patron Miss Bacon (Margaret Rutherford); it doesn't hurt, of course, that the manager presumes her to be a wealthy regular, rather than the shoplifter that she actually is. Over the balance of the film, Norman's efforts to make good, and impress the music department clerk (Lana Morris) that he has a crush on, only lead to additional subsequent sackings (and fortuitously-driven reinstatements) from the ever-more exasperated Freeman. Norman gets his chance for some final redemption when he stumbles onto a robbery scheme orchestrated from the inside by the store's calculating human resources director (Moira Lister). From his eccentric china arrangements at his first attempt at window dressing to his near self-immolation while attempting to repair a cigarette lighter, Wisdom's undeniable knack for physical farce was given plenty of free reign. The slow-burning, dapper Desmonde made a perfect foil for the unkempt and unpredictable Wisdom, and he would perform similar duties through five subsequent movies and many TV and personal appearances with Norman until his death in 1965. The formidable Rutherford was brought in as box-office insurance for the unknown-quantity lead, but Rank, as it turned out, need not have worried. Trouble in Store also served to debut Wisdom's self-composed ditty that would become his signature song, Don't Laugh at Me. In his 2002 autobiography My Turn, Wisdom recounted that he had by that time a couple of published songs by his credit, and offered up his latest composition to his director, the veteran John Paddy Carstairs, for use in the film. "'Don't be daft,' said Paddy, who was not given to mincing his words. 'You're the star of the film, you do your own stunts, you'd rewrite the entire script if we'd let you--and now you want to do the music as well.' And he waved me away." Wisdom's response was to seek out a studio pianist of his acquaintance, have him practice the melody, sign his own name to the sheet music, and hand it to Carstairs. "That afternoon Paddy came over, his face alight," the comic continued. "'Norman,' he said, 'I've got a song for you. Come on over to the music room and we'll play it.'" There sat the pianist, who then performed the number for a beaming Carstairs and a noncommittal Wisdom. After the comedian hemmed and hawed in response, the director declared, "You're bloody singing it--and that's final." In the late '60s, Wisdom had made some inroads insofar as raising his profile over in the United States--a Tony-nominated turn in the 1967 Broadway musical Walking Happy, a prominent role in The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)--but family problems forced his return to England. As a result, he never really developed a cache with the Colonials of the sort enjoyed by Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Benny Hill, and the Pythons. However--and this is a fact that Wisdom has reveled in--the little-guy-against-the-establishment themes of his farces have made him Albania's pre-eminent movie comic, as iconic there as Jerry Lewis is in France. Knighted in 2000, the always-driven entertainer formally entered his retirement after his appearance--at age 92, as a vicar doing battle with a pesky fly-- in Expresso (2007). Producer: Maurice Cowan, Earl St. John Director: John Paddy Carstairs Screenplay: John Paddy Carstairs, Maurice Cowan, Jill Craigie, Ted Willis Cinematography: Ernest Steward Film Editing: Geoffrey Foot, Peter Seabourne Art Direction: Alex Vetchinsky Music: Mischa Spoliansky Cast: Norman Wisdom (Norman), Moira Lister (Peggy Drew), Megs Jenkins (Miss Gibson), Jerry Desmonde (Augustus Freeman), Margaret Rutherford (Miss Bacon), Lana Morris (Sally Wilson). BW-85m. by Jay S. Steinberg