We’re delighted that, after a break of three months, Tyler Adams’ podcast Goon Pod started a new series on 1st April.
If you haven’t listened to Goon Pod before, and I know that won’t be many of you, it’s a weekly show which looks at various aspects of The Goon Show. It could be a specific episode from the radio show, the music, movies or other projects involving one or more of the cast, or even some celebrity guest who can talk about a connection. The new series has started with a look at a Peter Sellers film which is now 50 years old, The Return of the Pink Panther.
Goon Pod can be supported through Patreon, where Tyler produces Goon Pod Film Club for subscribers, looking at the wider world of comedy.
Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974) – Goon Pod
The first half of the 1970s was not a particularly fruitful period for Peter Sellers, at least in terms of critical and commercial success. He made a slew of films which failed to take off or, in some cases, weren't even released. Some of his worst films date from this period, chiefly the execrable Where Does It Hurt?, which we previously covered on Goon Pod with Paul Litchfield and Jeremy Limb.Those two return this week to tackle Sellers' 1974 wartime 'comedy' Soft Beds, Hard Battles, in which he takes on six roles – an elderly French General, a gung-ho British Major, a sinister Gestapo officer, a Japanese Prince, the President of France and, er, Adolf Hitler.While not as bad as Where Does It Hurt? (few things are), SBHB is a bit of a slog, an attempt by the Boulting Brothers to cash in on the then-vogue for sex comedies without fully committing, while weighing the film down with ill-judged set-pieces such as a group of German officers farting, belching and dying.It was during the production that Sellers embarked upon a six-week romance with Liza Minnelli, which was front-page news and rather got in the way of filming. An unhappy affair all round, the Boultings ended up losing a lot of money, the film was generally panned and didn't do much business at the box office.Join Jeremy, Paul and Tyler as they try to make sense of it all!
The Goon Show Preservation Society 