A serious comedy
Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between two Italian families over the icecream market of Glasgow.
Bill Paterson
Alan
Eleanor David
Maddy
Clare Grogan
Charlotte
Alex Norton
Trevor
Patrick Malahide
Colin
Roberto Bernardi
Mr. McCool
Rikki Fulton
Hilary
George Rossi
Bruno
Peter Rossi
Paolo
Billy McElhaney
Renato
Iain McColl
Archie
Billy Johnstone
Amos
Gilly Gilchrist
Rufus
Caroline Guthrie
Gloria
Oona McCracken
Nancy
Elizabeth Sinclair
Fiona
Katy Black
Sarah
Robin Black
Lily
Ron Donachie
George
Arnold Brown
Psychiatrist
Director
Bill Forsyth
Writers
Bill Forsyth
Michael Ellis
Editor
Chris Menges
Director of Photography
Mark Knopfler
Original Music Composer
Adrienne Atkinson
Production Design
Lindy Hemming
Costume Design
Mary-Jane Reyner
Costume Design
r96sk
10/18/2020
A nice, amusing and creative premise. I enjoyed <em>'Comfort and Joy'</em>. Bill Paterson heads events confidently as Alan, he's fun to watch in the lead. Patrick Malahide (<em>'Game of Thrones'</em>, <em>'Luther'</em>) is in there too, while Alex Norton and Roberto Bernardi play their respective roles well. The pacing, to me at least, is a little off at around the midway point, but otherwise it's a pleasant film from 1984. Watch it if you get the opportunity.
CinemaSerf
4/23/2024
Without any help at all from "Mr. Bridger", the Italian chip shops and ice cream vans of Glasgow are being smashed up. It's only because he takes a bit of a shine to one of the girls in the van that local radio personality "Alan" (Bill Peterson) witnesses one of the assaults and decides that he must do something to ensure peace breaks out. There really were "ice cream wars" in Glasgow so this engaging comedy has it's roots in fact as he tries to get the warring "Mr. Cool" (Robert Bernardi) and "Mr. Bunny" (Alex Norton) round the wafer table before his new soft-top BMW becomes little more than a bright red ashtray. He starts to use his radio show to convey illicit messages that just come across as gobbledegook to his station boss "Hilary" (Rikki Fulton) and soon his own career is starting to look like it might be melting too. The solution. Well anyone who's ever been to the city will know that we fry everything - even Mars bars! Patterson is on good form here, and his amiable delivery quite subtly takes an entertaining ping at the mundanity of commercial radio and it's banal advertising whilst touching on then ridiculing what was quite a serious issue at the time. Rikki Fulton has expert comedy timing and facial expressions that deliver what a thousand words never could. "Has he got a sanity clause"? Well it is the winter. Well worth a watch.
