May 6th   
Trouble in Store*   
(GB 1953)             
Rank. 85m. bw

A disaster-prone stockroom assistant goes in and out of employment at a London department store beset by shoplifters and racketeers out to raid the tills.
The first of this star's manic farces, pushing the humour of embarrassment to the threshold and beyond, combined with sentimental interludes and patterned a little after Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. It was successful enough for Rank to churn out more Wisdom pratfalls (see below), and even led him in later years to international stardom and a knighthood (stumbling over for the Queen for comic effect), so this film has much to answer - and be thankful - for.

Written by: John Paddy Carstairs, Maurice Cowan, Ted Willis, Jill Craigie.
Producer: Maurice Cowan.
Director: John Paddy Carstairs.
Starring: Norman Wisdom, Jerry Desmonde, Margaret Rutherford, Lana Morris, Moira Lister, Derek Bond, Megs Jenkins, Joan Sims, Michael Brennan.
Photography: Ernest Steward.
Music: Mischa Spoliansky.

+ subsequent films on the same theme: One Good Turn (1954), Man of the Moment (1955), Up in the World (1956), Just My Luck (1957), The Square Peg (1958), Follow a Star (1959), The Bulldog Breed (1960), On the Beat (1962), A Stitch in Time (1963), The Early Bird (1965), Press for Time (1966)

Norman Wisdom with two fellow comedians on the bill that were big influences on his subsequent career.