Comfort and Joy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Comfort and Joy is a movie released in 1984 and directed by Bill Forsyth. It starred Bill Paterson as a Glasgow, Scotland radio DJ whose life undergoes a bizarre upheaval when his girlfriend moves out of their apartment, taking much of the furniture with her.
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[edit] Plot
In his quest for solace, he follows a girl riding in an ice-cream van and finds himself in the middle of a turf war between rival Italian ice-cream sellers. After several misadventures (including the 'bombing' of his fancy sports car with ice-cream cones) he negotiates a truce between the rivals, who turn out to be uncle and nephew. He does this by giving them a new treat that both can sell, while he alone controls the recipe.
The script features the whimsical humour that was Forsyth's trademark at this time, and pushes the limits even further in some respects. The nephew's operation is called "Mr. Bunny", and the trouble starts after Paterson's character, Alan "Dicky" Bird, follows the "Mr. Bunny" ice-cream van under a tunnel-like railway bridge. This, of course, is not the first time someone has followed a rabbit into a hole with bizarre consequences. In this case a gang of toughs ambush the van, whose occupants retaliate with jets of raspberry sauce. In the middle of the attack the assailants recognize Bird and demand that he play them a request on his show.
Later Bird, trying to warn "Mr. Bunny" about the rival "Mr. McCool" gang, broadcasts cryptic messages on his show, which earns him a trip to a psychiatrist. He has to deal with his boss, played by Scots comic actor Rikki Fulton, and also a variety of monomaniac whizz kids of the kind who infected UK local radio at the time, and probably still do today. Bird is, by their standards, hopelessly old-school, with his easy-going style and lack of techno-tricks.
In the end, however, his common sense and a bit of craftiness bring him through. In that sense, he is different from the heroes of Gregory's Girl and Local Hero, both of whom are pretty much adrift, and only arrive at a good ending by happenstance.
[edit] Interesting references
The nickname "Dicky" Bird is based on the Cockney rhyming slang expression for "word". The expression "dicky bird" is also widely used in the UK to mean any common bird like a sparrow, starling etc. especially when talking to a child.
