…and if so, how many seconds did it take you?
Update 8pm: Yes, many guessed, some didn’t.
I came across it when I was at home on Monday. Unfortunately I didn’t stay tuned… apart from George Cole (better known as Arthur Daley), Sid James and Joan Sims, there was another familiar face somewhere in there, a one-time associate of the above gentleman.
- IMDB: Will Any Gentleman…? (1953)
16 replies on “Can you name the man on the couch?”
As soon as he opened his mouth I knew it was 3 ;)
Same here, the second he opened his mouth.
Will any gentleman do? Or do I have to say something terribly twee?
Nothing in the clip rang any bell at all for me
Yes, it took until I heard the voice.
What a shame there’s no chance that Geoffrey Rush will get to play him. He’d be perfect
OK< I give up, who is he?
Worzel Gummidge!
Please explain?
Perhaps I could just say something a little pert.
I still haven’t got a clue and you appear to have given the answer!
Is it a scene from some film? Or TV show? If so, which one?
@David: I didn’t recognise him either, but I figured it out (before Daniel posted the update) by doing some detective work on IMDb.
If you want to do the same: the man on the couch is addressed by the other character as “Mr Sterling”. IMDb allows you to search by character, so I just searched for all characters named “Sterling” or “Stirling”, eliminated the film and TV titles that were much too recent (say, after 1970), and was left with a couple of characters, and the actors who played them, from very old films. As soon as I saw a particular actor’s name from a 1953 film, I figured it had to be him, given that Daniel has posted before about his liking for the TV show which made this actor internationally famous. The update that Daniel posted at 8pm confirmed I was right.
It also explains why I didn’t recognise him, even when he spoke. I’m not a fan of the TV show. I know his name, but am not familiar with his face and had never heard him speak before.
Two seconds (just after he took the swig, before he choked), and definitely confirmed when he spoke. Never liked the show mentioned in comment 8 (found it dull and somewhat frustrating) but I grew up with him in his more famous role and loved it :-)
Its the third doctor, isn’t it ?
Andrew, for some reason, they are teasing you. This actor is called Jon Pertwee and he was the third incarnation of Doctor Who, around 1973-1975 period.
Well even with all the clues and the iMDb reference I would never have realised it was Jon Pertwee, who I knew very well as a child when he played the third Doctor Who.
I only know him from 1970 on when he first appeared in Spearhead from Space, the first colour story in Doctor Who.
To this day I am a Doctor Who nutjob and I have the DVDs of almost all available episodes from the Unearthly Child of November 23 1963 to the present.
I wasn’t around when the film Daniel posted about was made and have never heard of it though I do note from the cast list that the first Doctor Who was in it too.