The Early Bird

The Early Bird is a 1965 British comedy film directed by Robert Asher and starring Norman Wisdom, Edward Chapman, Bryan Pringle, Richard Vernon, John Le Mesurier and Jerry Desmonde.

[3] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Routine Norman Wisdom vehicle, the only innovations being the use of colour, and the absence of a heroine who will see through her beau's clumsiness and regard him with loyal, loving admiration.

As usual, the comedy relies heavily on crude slapstick, with a lengthy and repetitive prelude of tumbles downstairs, and two orgies of destruction – the first entailing the tearing-up of a garden by a runaway motor-mower, the second featuring an ordeal by water, foam and milk.

These knockabout highlights are up to par, but the intervening material is weak, and the golf-course sequence with Wisdom impersonating a parson is particularly uninventive.

Regular straight men Jerry Desmonde and Edward Chapman are as solid as rocks and longtime director Robert Asher gives his star plenty of leeway.