Down Among the Z Men is a 1952 black-and-white British comedy film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring the Goons: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe.
The movie was filmed early in the Goons' career before many of the show's recurring characters were created, and the stars only play one character each: Eccles (Milligan), Colonel Bloodnok (Sellers), Osric Pureheart (Bentine) and Harry Jones (Secombe).
Plot: Harry Jones is a clerk in Mr Crab's general mercantile store and an amateur actor in community theatre, where he is currently playing a Scotland Yard inspector, "Batts of the Yard". When the absentminded Professor Osrick Pureheart leaves a secret military formula in the store, mayhem ensues as two suspicious secret agents (actually enemy spies), who have been shadowing the professor, question Harry regarding the professor, none of them realising that Harry now has the formula in his possession.
Convinced by the two spies to follow the professor, Harry goes to an Army post, Camp Warwell, where he is mistakenly enlisted in the Z Men, ostensibly an elite unit guarding atomic secrets but in reality a ragtag group of reservists, retreads, and others of marginal (at best) competence. The spies kidnap an adjutant newly assigned to the camp and one of them then impersonates him to gain entry to Camp Warwell.
The post's commander, Colonel Bloodnok, has been assigned for security purposes a supposed "daughter" who is actually a female MI5 operative. Harry soon becomes smitten with the "daughter", and they work together to foil an attempt by the secret agents to purloin Pureheart's formula.
National Service in Britain in the 1950s obliged all fit British men to serve in the military for two years, and thereafter three and a half years in the reserves. "Category Z" was one of the classes of reserve organisation. During the Korean War there was much apprehension that, in order to supply enough troops, the government might remobilize "Z-men" who had been released after their two years in uniform.
As the letter "Z" is pronounced as "Zed" in Received Pronunciation, the title is also a pun on a traditional drinking song, "Down Among the Dead Men".
Credits:
Harry Secombe as Harry Jones
Michael Bentine as Prof. Osrick Pureheart
Spike Milligan as Pte. Eccles
Peter Sellers as Colonel Bloodnok
Carole Carr as Carole Gayley
The Television Toppers as dancers
Clifford Stanton as Stanton
Robert Cawdron as Sergeant Bullshine
Andrew Timothy as Captain Evans
Graham Stark as Spider
Russ Allen as Brigadier's ADC
Elizabeth Kearns as girl in shop
Miriam Karlin as woman in shop
Sidney Vivian as landlord
Eunice Gayson as officer's wife
