Bees in Paradise

Bees in Paradise is a 1944 British musical comedy film directed by Val Guest and starring Arthur Askey, Anne Shelton and Peter Graves. It was produced by Edward Black at Gainsborough Pictures. Co-written by director Val Guest and comic Marriott Edgar, who wrote for Will Hay and the Crazy Gang and composed some of Stanley Holloway's famous monologues; this is a lesser known Askey vehicle. Plot The Queen of Paradise Island, an uncharted isle somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean (northwest of Freetown, Sierra Leone), is not happy. The town crier of the all-female hive-like colony (around two thousand strong) has just reported that there have only been two births within the last eighteen months and both of them were boys. As the Queen points out to Jani, her Minister of Propaganda: the only thing worse than boys is men. She demands more marriages, even going as far to think about passing conscription into law. However, Jani points out that the drones (which is how the inhabitants of this island refer to men) are not willing to marry because after a two-month honeymoon the bridegrooms are executed. An Allied bomber plane gets into trouble. The four aircrew bail out and parachute down on Paradise Island. They are quickly captured by the native woman and Rouna, the colony's leading journalist, sets her eye on the diminutive Arthur Tucker, the mechanic. Brought before the queen, the airmen try to ingratiate themselves. The queen explains that they are free to move around the island and if rescued they will be permitted to leave. However, she encourages them to stay and marry within the colony. She hints at the death sentence, but the airmen fail to pick up on the implication.