THE SQUARE PEG (1958) **1/2 World War II, of course, wasn't merely a battle between Allied and Axis powers. Oh, no, there was a great deal more than that going on. Why, just within Britain itself innumerable battles were raging. Take the first half of this film, where a small town council battles the British army to a stand-off over road repairs. For our American readers, the point of reference to Norman Wisdom would be Jerry Lewis. Wisdom (and Jacques Tati) are laced with nationalist intonation and intent, but the inspiration and structure share much in common. Remarkable, isn't it, how slapstick comedy plots, paradox, and the most elevated heights of religious enlightenment all demand the teleological suspension of the rational. And suspend it Mr Wisdom does, all the way into the nerve centre of the Nazi army! Yes, yes, large Germans singing badly and all that. But it's really our Hattie Jacques, God love her. But if Tati (who isn't in this film at all, actually) were to marry Hattie in a matriarchal society, wouldn't his name be Jacques Jacques (oh, never mind)? Honor Blackman lends the film some (otherwise would be missing entirely) elegance and class, and I do believe that the French could learn a good deal about the diction of their own tongue from her. Yes, yes, there's nothing quite like a posh English girl speaking French in one of those cafés where they serve bier in thimbles. But if they do, wave it around and say something like "It's all an attack on conformity in the purest sense, really. Just that the Germans and military have made themselves such colossal targets in that regard. I'll have fifteen more of these thimbles, please!"
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