This film is part of Rentals
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_480x270/public/hero-images/39715ddabcbfb3f059acdc7247bc2707.jpg?itok=SUFMkm5t)
Penny Points to Paradise
The first screen outing for Goon Show stars Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe in a cheerful comic escapade set in Brighton.
Director: Tony Young
Overview
The long-lost first screen outing for stars of The Goon Show, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, is a cheap and cheerful comic escapade climaxing in a Brighton waxworks. Secombe takes the lead role as Harry Flakers, winner of a big prize on the football pools. True to his roots he decides to continue with his planned summer holiday to Brighton, staying in his favourite shabby B&B. But his fellow guests are a shady bunch all with an eye on his winnings.
While Milligan is relatively subdued as Flakers’ best friend Spike, Sellers displays his famed dexterity of characterisation in a double-role as both a bluff con-man and a smarmy salesman. Filmed on the fly in just three weeks by family-run outfit Adelphi Films, Penny Points to Paradise aimed to capture the madcap energy of the Goons just before their ground-breaking radio comedy show first aired. Although the comedy here is more conservative than the Goons at their wildest harking back to the days of variety and silent cinema, there are still plenty of laughs to be had in this fascinating record of the ground-breaking troupe’s early exploits. Although Sellers dismissed the film later in his career, his recollections may well have been hazy: the film was long out of circulation, until its reconstruction by the BFI. The film’s initial 1951 release was short-lived, although a shorter cut was assembled in 1960 to capitalise on Sellers’ growing popularity; inserting sequences from another Adelphi comedy, Let’s Go Crazy. Following the discovery of a 16mm print in Adelphi’s archives in 2006, a restoration incorporating all known surviving sources was completed in 2008.
Related
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/sick-of-myself-01.jpeg?itok=6WYKe_5g)
Sick of Myself Sick of Myself
Comedy 2022 97 mins Director: Kristoffer Borgli
She just did what! Attention-seeking Signe will do anything to keep the focus on herself, in this wildly demented comedy.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/La-Chimera-brighter.jpg?itok=VdoQPgMg)
La Chimera La Chimera
Action and Adventure 2023 132 mins Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Alice Rohrwacher’s fascinating new drama finds Josh O’Connor’s fish out of water delving into the world of stolen artefacts.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Trouble-With-Jessica-02.jpg?itok=STSk4WOE)
The Trouble with Jessica The Trouble with Jessica
Comedy 2023 89 mins Director: Matt Winn
An uninvited guest causes havoc at a dinner party in this highly entertaining and darkly comic satire.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Hotel-Splendide04.jpg?itok=fV-dNlK4)
Hotel Splendide Hotel Splendide
Comedy 1932 53 mins Director: Michael Powell
Music hall veteran Jerry Verno stars as a lowly clerk who gets more than he bargained for when he inherits a hotel, in Michael Powell's charming comedy.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Ballywalter-03_1920.jpg?itok=f4IJFVkz)
Ballywalter Ballywalter
Comedy 2020 90 mins Director: Prasanna Puwanarajah
Seána Kerslake is superb as caustic cab driver, Eileen, who makes an unlikely connection with regular passenger and local comedian, Shane (Patrick Kielty), in Prasanna Puwanarajah’s charming debut.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/little-english.jpg?itok=b5-Ebqoa)
Little English Little English
Comedy 2022 99 mins Director: Pravesh Kumar
A raucous and audacious comedy following the lives of a dysfunctional British Punjabi family.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/computer-chess-alt.jpg?itok=bxfkO1VT)
Computer Chess Computer Chess
Comedy 2013 91 mins Director: Andrew Bujalski
Andrew Bujalski’s hilarious and surreal comedy about the birth of computer culture, set in an early 1980s conference where primitive programmers take on chess masters.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/wg2.jpg?itok=YEgW9t7Y)
Whisky Galore! Whisky Galore!
Comedy 1949 83 mins Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Ealing's thirstiest comedy: "the longest unsponsored advertisement ever to reach cinema screens"?
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Dogtooth%25201920x1080%2520%25282%2529l.jpg?itok=GwCY-9h8)
Dogtooth Dogtooth
Drama 2009 93 mins Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Yorgos Lanthimos' scary, witty tale of a dysfunctional Greek family is original, ingenious and sadly relevant as a study of parent-child relationships
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/promo237223545_2.jpg?itok=lwK3obDz)
Unrelated Unrelated
Drama 2008 96 mins Director: Joanna Hogg
On a Tuscan break a fortysomething woman finds herself drawn to the company of a group of partying teens, including a young Tom Hiddleston (in one of his earliest roles).
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/5fde56674b884bc6e73f70cb7515b4b4.jpg?itok=k8UopwOY)
Amour Fou Amour Fou
Period drama 2014 92 mins Director: Jessica Hausner
Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a devilish anti-Rom-Com in which a German poet seeks mates for a suicide pact.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/La-Grande-bouffe-3.jpg?itok=JQ3lEXje)
La Grande Bouffe La Grande Bouffe
Comedy 1973 130 mins Director: Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/lolita-1.jpg?itok=3ljyfgni)
Lolita Lolita
Comedy 1962 153 mins Director: Stanley Kubrick
With an Oscar®-nominated screenplay by Nabokov himself, Kubrick filmed a tale that was once thought unadaptable.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/fa5221085c3547db616faf20da9cda1f.jpg?itok=LAiFviqM)
The Optimists of Nine Elms The Optimists of Nine Elms
Drama 1973 106 mins Director: Anthony Simmons
Peter Sellers is superb in a warm, wistful family drama, in which two Battersea kids forge an unlikely alliance with a faded music hall star.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/2f5ba9dc8a373c914b4ef460de4896fc.jpg?itok=g6Q4-Mdx)
The Slappiest Days of Our Lives The Slappiest Days of Our Lives
Comedy 1953 73 mins
A young Peter Sellers voices this compilation film of silent slapstick footage, featuring Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/67106681bb54252ec24583b33144d4f5.jpg?itok=rqpBz2Jd)
Let's Go Crazy Let's Go Crazy
Comedy 1951 33 mins Director: Alan J. Cullimore
Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan shine in a series of sketches and multiple roles, in this madcap mixture of music-hall and anarchic comedy.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/b054dff7166baae5f203e23a7facaac5.jpg?itok=jrYU8jqW)
The Blockhouse The Blockhouse
Drama 1973 92 mins Director: Clive Rees
A rare serious performance by Peter Sellers drives this tale of eight men buried in a bunker for three years at the end of WWII.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/787c4463c1c4eddb2e38d0455ffa7e06.jpg?itok=N5sBEGj6)
Mr. Topaze Mr. Topaze
Comedy 1961 97 mins Director: Peter Sellers
Charming character comedy, unseen for decades, starring Peter Sellers as a school teacher corrupted by big business.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/mockery3.jpg?itok=8f55rPHI)
My Death Is a Mockery My Death Is a Mockery
Crime 1952 69 mins Director: Tony Young
Hop aboard for a choppy Channel crossing with this bleak, bullet-spattered sea-smuggling crime drama.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/promo207338345_2.jpg?itok=-G8qyg5S)
Hands of Destiny Hands of Destiny
Drama 1954 52 mins Director: Tony Young
The strange prophesies of Dr Josef Ranald, palm reader of choice to Nazi war leaders.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Green-Border-01.jpg?itok=-YVcr1Za)
Green Border Green Border
Drama 2023 152 mins
Three-time Oscar-nominee Agnieszka Holland returns with a powerful, timely and unflinching exploration of the current migrant crisis.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/Our-River-our-sky-01.jpg?itok=p9xO8tL8)
Our River... Our Sky Our River... Our Sky
War 2021 118 mins Director: Maysoon Pachachi
A small Baghdad community searches for hope in the face of unpredictable violence, turmoil, and loss.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/LoveLiesBleeding-01_brighter.jpg?itok=Ji_gwS-r)
Love Lies Bleeding Love Lies Bleeding
Romance 2023 104 mins Director: Rose Glass
Rose Glass’s gripping and gory follow-up to Saint Maud finds a lesbian couple drawn into a web of violence in 1980s small-town New Mexico.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/sick-of-myself-01.jpeg?itok=6WYKe_5g)
Sick of Myself Sick of Myself
Comedy 2022 97 mins Director: Kristoffer Borgli
She just did what! Attention-seeking Signe will do anything to keep the focus on herself, in this wildly demented comedy.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/wilding-02.jpg?itok=AmImzKtl)
Wilding Wilding
Documentary 2023 75 mins Director: David Allen
A dying landscape is healed against all odds, going on to thrive in astonishing ways, in this hopeful story of ecological regeneration.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_32x18/public/hero-images/AHouseInJerusalem-01.jpg?itok=9SyTSTlz)
A House in Jerusalem A House in Jerusalem
Drama 2022 104 mins Director: Muayad Alayan
After moving from the UK to Jerusalem, young Rebecca strikes up a mysterious and an unlikely friendship, in this poignant tale of loss and longing.