The Amorous Prawn – 1962 | 88 mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Energetic, fast-moving farce based on Anthony Kimmins West End stage success The Amorous Prawn. Joan Greenwood leads an all-star cast including Cecil Parker, Ian Carmichael, Robert Beatty and Dennis Price. When filmgoers failed to respond, the film was re-titled The Playgirl and the War Minister, a shameless attempt to exploit the notorious Profumo affair.

Lady Fitzadam (Joan Greenwood), an impoverished general’s wife devises a resourceful scheme to improve their finances when her husband General Fitzadam (Cecil Parker) goes overseas on manoeuvres. She turns their official Scottish Highland residence into a luxury hotel for wealthy Americans, with their army staff dressed in civvies and waiting on the guests. Comic complications rapidly ensue when firstly General Fitzadam returns, but when he discovers the military will not pay the expense of his furniture removal to a cottage in Dorset after retirement he participates in his wife’s deception.

A further predicament arises when the lecherous Minister for War (Dennis Price) arrives and rents a room in what he believes to be a Highland hotel. He later decides to remain silent when a local blonde barmaid is discovered in his bed.