Raising the Wind

James Robertson Justice - Sir Benjamin
Leslie Phillips - Mervyn
Sid James - Sid
Paul Massie - Malcolm
Kenneth Williams - Harold
Eric Barker - Morgan Rutherford
Liz Fraser - Miranda
Geoffrey Keen - Sir John
Esma Cannon - Mrs. Deevens
Joan Hickson - Mrs. Bostwick
Jill Ireland - Janet
David Lodge - Taxi Driver
Lance Percival - Harry

Cheerful comic caper in which James Robertson Justice reworks his familiar bulldozing persona from the Doctor films. The pace is lively, but the jokes are a little thin and the story hangs together rather limply. Directed by Gerald Thomas, it features a cast of familiar British faces, including Eric Barker, Leslie Phillips, Kenneth Williams and Sid James.

A new batch of music students enrols at the prodigious London Academy of Music and the Arts under the tutelage of irascible conductor Sir Benjamin Boyd (James Robertson Justice). Five of the penniless students move into rented accommodation together and venture into a series of get-rich-quick schemes to help pay their rent. One of them, Mervyn (Leslie Phillips), inadvertently writes a pop song while drunk that jeopardises his scholarship at a top academy. Whilst the students try to raise enough money to but the song back from the publishers – Sir Benjamin saves the day by pointing out the tune is already copyrighted.