Barnacle Bill (aka All at Sea in the U.S.) has an undeserved critical reputation as a late failure that is more concerned with the studios' past comedy glories than it is in creating something new and innovative. Two famous accounts of the studio are scathing in their assessments: Charles Barr felt the film didn't "merit a long account", dismissing it as a recreation "of past Ealing successes... the last twitching of the nervous system before death." (Barr 1980, 164) George Perry, meanwhile, saw Barnacle Bill as "Ealing comedy in decline" (Perry 1981, 125), with "eccentricity replaced by silliness" compared to the "sharp, accurate, well-aimed satire" of Passport to Pimlico (1949). (142)
But, based on viewing it for this blog, I can't really agree with them.
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