Up Jumped a Swagman

Up Jumped a Swagman is a 1965 British musical comedy film directed by Christopher Miles and starring Frank Ifield, Annette Andre, Ronald Radd and Suzy Kendall. DVD Release 2014 Network British Film

The film was made when Frank Ifield was at the height of his popularity with an attempt to reproduce the success of Cliff Richards musicals. Ifields agent, Lesley Grade, suggested another one of his clients, Christopher Miles as director. Miles was onlyand had never made a feature film before. He says the script was to be written by the people who did Cliff Richards musicals. MilesUnfortunately the two writers of the Cliff pictures were not then on speaking terms, so the two halves of a rather soggy script arrived separately in the post, and not surprisingly made no sense at all. So Leslie, not one to be beaten, got an old writer friend from ITV, Lewis Greifer, saying Hes the man, I know youll get on well which we did. However thinking up a credible vehicle for Frank, amiable and charming as he was, proved to me that ultimately you cannot make a celluloid purse out of a sows ear, even though Frank was gamely willing to send himself up. It was going to have to be a small budget, and to save money I was asked to use a new film saving invention the dreaded Techniscope process. By only using two sprocket holes for each frame instead of the standard four a narrow negative was created, which had a sort of widescreen look. However in 1965 colour film stock was still rather grainy, which showed when the final picture was blown up for the large cinema screen. ........

Source: Wikipedia