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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - M 2 Mins Read

    Make Mine a Million (1959)

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    Sid Gibson (Sidney James) is a soap powder salesman who decides what he really needs is some TV advertising. Unfortunately, he’s absolutely broke.

    Sid calls upon his friend Arthur Ashton (Arthur Askey) – a make-up man for the non-commercial National Television channel (a thinly-disguised BBC) – who arranges to sneak a plug for Sid’s product – ‘Bonko’ – into a live broadcast of a TV variety show.

    The TV plug sends the sales of ‘Bonko!’ soaring but Arthur gets the sack – along with cameraman Jack (Bernard Cribbins) – for breaking the strict ‘no advertising’ rules on the National Television network.

    Arthur and Sid then concoct ever more outrageous ways to save costs on advertising by plugging products during live broadcasts such as the Ascot races, a production of Swan Lake at the Edinburgh Festival (where they plug ‘Slap Happy Cake Mix’ for a customer) and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.  Today, it would be called “guerilla marketing”.

    Along the way, Sid and Arthur also help foil a gang of robbers. A host of stage and screen stars of the day appear in cameo roles.

    Arthur Ashton
    Arthur Askey
    Sid Gibson
    Sidney James
    Martin Russell
    Dermot Walsh
    Mrs Burgess
    Olga Lindo
    National TV Director-General
    Clive Morton
    Sally
    Sally Barnes
    Assistant
    George Margo
    Diana
    Leigh Madison
    Jack
    Bernard Cribbins
    Anxious husband
    Kenneth Connor
    Commercial TV director
    Lionel Murton
    Professor
    David Nettheim
    Mr Langtree
    Tom Gill
    Supt. James
    Bruce Seton
    Assistant Director-General
    Richard Caldicot
    Gillian Lynne 
    Herself
    The Television Toppers
    Themselves
    The Penge Formation Dancers
    Themselves
    Patricia Bredin
    Herself
    Leonard Weir 
    Himself
    Tommy Trinder
    Himself
    Evelyn Laye
    Herself
    Dickie Henderson
    Himself
    Dennis Lotis 
    Himself
    Sabrina
    Herself
    Mail Van Robber
    Sam Kydd
    Switchboard operator
    Barbara Windsor

    Director
    Lance Comfort

    Video

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    Put some beefiness into your mid-week menu with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the Radio Times on 30 September 1965.

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    They were awful. An overpowering savoury flavour that lingered in your mouth for hours. Heaven knows what unmentionable parts of a bull went into making them 😳

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    This is what they promised us when I was a kid. What happened? 

All I have is 700 channels of rubbish on the TV in High Def, TikTok, Facebook and a phone I can take photographs with . . .

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