Mr. Drake's Duck (1951)

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. takes his new bride, ditzy Yolande Donlan, to his decrepit farm. When Ms. Donlan purchases six dozen ducks by accident, they soon discover one lays eggs with uranium in the shell. Within short order they are occupied by the Army, the Navy and the R.A.F., who want the duck and its ability to separate out the element for national service.It's an exceedingly silly comedy, written and directed by Miss Donlan's husband, Val Guest, with plenty of fine comedy players in the cast: Jon Pertwee as their rustic farmhand, Reuben; Peter Butterworth as the handyman who feuds constantly with Mr. Pertwee; Wilfred Hyde-White, A.E. Matthews and Reginald Beckwith are on hand for the fun. It's not a great comedy, by any means, but it proceeds at such a hectic pace -- Mr. Guest had gotten his training as a writer for Walter Forde and Marcel Varnel -- that the time flew happily by.

This film has a good cast.Three of the actors,Wilfred Hyde White,Jon Pertwee and Peter Butterworth ,would become well known for their film and TV roles in the years that followed.It is therefore a shame that the writers could not produce a funny script.Director Guest only has himself and Ian Messiter to blame.Messiter was the originator of the BBC radio programme ^Just A Minute".A sure fine of the desperation of writers is when they repeat a gag,in this case the Bren carrier knocking over the gate post every time it enters and exits.Fairbanks wisely saw the writing on the wall and was far more involved in TV from here on in.Donlan gives the sort of performance that she gave in all the other films she made with Guest.

In one of his last feature films Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. plays American expatriate Donald Drake who has inherited a farm in Sussex where he has brought his new bride to settle. Kind of an English version of Green Acres. His bride is also an American, Yolande Donlon. She's very much like Eva Gabor and there are the English rustic types just like on Green Acres.Yolande goes on a shopping trip to town with their hired hand Jon Pertwee and while waving to him at an auction she accidentally buys five dozen ducks. So far so good, but one of the ducks turns out to lay uranium eggs with a lead shell. In come all the British armed services, quarantining the Fairbanks farm and turning his honeymoon into a nightmare. Adding to their problems the Doug and Yolande are also trapped with Jon Pertwee and their loan officer from the bank, a handyman, and an official from the Agricultural Ministry all of whom happen to be on the premises when the quarantine order is issued.It's an amusing film, nothing terribly spectacular about it. I always enjoy seeing Jon Pertwee in anything. Back when the Doctor Who show was run on American television he was my favorite of all the actors who played the Doctor.Yolande Donlon was competent enough, but if the film had been made five years later, Marilyn Monroe would have been a natural for the part.My only question is, why didn't the British Army just take the ducks instead of quarantining the farm. Because there would have been no film at all.

There is quite a good cast for this film but most of them are woefully wasted,for the life of me how Douglas Fairbanks got himself involved in this piece of fluff escapes me on all whole a very average film