Russian around… Not Now, Comrade (1976)

OK, I watched this because Carol Hawkins is in it; is that so wrong? There are many British films from the seventies that fall under the “guilty pleasure” category as “sex comedies” a term that is usually a contra-indication in terms of both elements and content. Not Now, Comrade, to my surprise, proved to be a well-constructed farce, with a strong cast camping it up in style and plenty of humour. Granted Carol does give us plenty of “show” but it’s for comic effect and not (just) titillation if that’s an acceptable defence in 2019?

Written by Ray Cooney – who directed with Harold Snoad - it’s perhaps one of the more successful translations of his classic farces onto film and, largely based on one set, it does have the feel of a stage performance especially with the camera following the actors as they move from one understanding to the next. Cooney was hugely successful in the West End at the time and had 17 plays performed there including Run for Your Wife which ran for nine years. He made a number of film versions but not all were critically well-regarded…

Not Now, Comrade is not great art but it’s fun and allows so many character actors to indulge their comic chops even if their only wearing briefs and nipple tassels in Carol’s case.

Now, if you’re sitting comfortably, let’s sort out the plot… We start off at the Royal Albert Hall where a Russian ballet troop is meeting the press. Rudi Petrovyan (Lewis Fiander) is the star dancer and looks nervously at two KGB agents making sure he behaves. An attractive blonde burlesque dancer, Barbara Wilcox (Carol Hawkins) leaves her club and climbs into an open-top Triumph sportscar stripping off down to her work clothes as she speeds off to Kensington.

Beautiful Babs – that’s her name too! – parks up in Kensington Gore and runs over to perform a startling distraction in front of the ballet troop thereby allowing Rudi to make a break for it. He is supposed to climb into the boot of her car but, in the confusion, he gets into the boot of a Rolls Royce driven by a naval Commander Rimmington (Leslie Phillips, yay!!). Off sails Rimmington with Barbara in hot pursuit followed by the two Russian agents as the scene is set in Cooney style.

"Oh, I say... ding, dong." etc

The Commander parks up outside his country house and, as Barbra looks on, goes in to meet his daughter, Nancy played by the excellent Michele Dotrice. Watching Dotrice and Philips work you appreciate the skill involved in this particularly British genre; the trick is to keep a straight face but to be as earnest as possible, it’s real life just switched up a tad… and with fewer clothes, albeit not as few as you’d expect.

There follows many enjoyable near misses as Barbra tries to hide Rudi from Rimmington who is sent fishing only to return early by which time Nancy is in on the game and has enlisted her finance Gerry Buss (Ian Lavender). Among all these doings is the world-worn-down gardener Hoskins (Roy Kinnear) who’s confused already without the unnecessary complications of his “betters”.

Carol Hawkins and Lewis Fiander

Cooney plays Mr. Laver, a man from the ministry sent with a message for the Commander only to find Bob impersonating the father-in-law to be (who hasn’t met him). In all the commotion a Constable arrives played by Windsor Davies who, somewhat inevitably, ends up meeting with a cheeky guest, Bobby, played by his TV partner Don Estelle.

The top-quality cast is rounded off by the ageless June Whitfield as Janet Rimmington. Together they make the most out of a situation that in lesser hands could spin humourlessly out of control. But they know exactly how to play Conney’s lines and situations and Not Now Comrade surprises with genuinely funny moments and oodles of charm. It’s classy not rude.

Michelle Dotrice and Ian Lavender

Dusty Verdict: Funny and not sleazy, apart from that one chilly tasselled dance from the lovely Carol, this is well worth whiling away a rainy afternoon watching. See some of the cream of British stage actors working on film and be grateful.

The film is available on DVD and is also shown from time to time on Talking Pictures TV.

Ray Cooney, Ian Lavender and Carol Hawkins

 

 

 

Snappy families… What a Carve Up! (1961)

John Peel once introduced Pink Floyd’s post-psych, proto-rave “One of These Days (I’m Going to Cut You into Little Pieces”, as being described by Roger Waters as “a poignant appraisal of the contemporary social situation…” before adding, acerbically, “make of that what you will…”

Could the same be said of this upwardly-mobile whodunnit in which familial betrayal is seemingly at the service of monetary gain? Jonathan Coe obviously thought so when he used the title for his book critiquing 1980’s Thatcherite “greedism” but, whilst its view of human nature is broadly cynical, the Ray Cooney source material is more slapstick farce than satire. It is in truth, hilariously, no more than the standard British disregard for upper class human frailty and if anyone’s going to make it out of this one alive you know it’s more likely to be the down-to-Earth Kenneth Connor and his mate Sid… oh and Shirley Eaton, of course: have you seen those pins?!

Shirley and Ken

As Adam Faith, who makes a late appearance in this film, once sang: “what do you want if you don’t want money?” Laughs, I suppose?? As it turns out there’s quite a few of those in What a Carve Up! Which features some of the finest comedy-performers of their generation in an age-old yarn about a shadowy house of mystery…

Sid and Ken play miss-matched best mates, sharing a flat and just about managing as Syd Butler a salesman and Ernest Broughton a horror novel proof-reader with an over-active imagination. News comes of the death of a distant relative Gabriel Broughton, the owner of Blackshaw Towers, and that Ernie must attend the reading of the will.

This bolt from the blue has Ernie dreaming of an inheritance but after a long trip on a smokey train he and his newly-appointed “legal advisor”, Syd, make their way through forbidding fog to the family pile: Blackshaw? Sure it’s black… and very, very dark.

The clan is gathered

They are greeted by Fisk (Michael Gough), the ghoulish family butler and ushered into the huge sitting room to meet Ernie’s family tree… There’s Guy (Dennis Price), Earnest’s cousin, a heavy drinker whose sardonic wit is utilised in permanent battle with his grimly-grasping sister Janet (Valerie Taylor). It’s hard to believe that they’re the off-spring of the bumblingly-avuncular Dr Edward Broughton (George Woodbridge).

But the Broughton’s seem an odd bunch for whom private education has not necessarily produced a balanced outlook: Great Aunt Emily Broughton (the genius Esma Cannon!) is a little confused and is convinced that the Great War is still on (did it ever really end?) whilst cousin Malcolm (a wonderful, wide-eyed turn from Michael Gwynn) is an unbalanced musician whose clearly had one too many Mozarts… he’s convinced it’s not him though but everybody else and to some extent he’s not wrong!

Fisk catches up on his reading

The boys arrive just in time for the start of proceedings with this grim clan all gathered around the dinning table waiting to hear if they’ve been left anything by Old Man Broughton as Everett Sloane (dead-deadpan Donald Pleasence) looks out with cold neutrality from over his spectacles… They are a most peculiar lot and generally none-too-keen on the mathematical impications of additional relatives.

But there’s one more to join them, the stunning Nurse Linda Dixon (the peerless Shirley Eaton, the sexual superpower of British comedy) who had looked after the old man – is there anything in the will for her and, as far as Ernie’s concerned, is there any of her in it for him?

James, Price, Connor and Eaton

Pretty soon there’s a lot more to concern Ernie’s over-active imagination as his relatives start being killed off one by one… the murdered is surely amongst them but who? Will Sid and Ernie find out in time, will Ernie recover from seeing Nurse Dixon getting changed, is the War really still on and what’s all this got to do with Adam Faith anyway…

You’ll have to watch it to find out.

Dusty verdict: If the plot sound familiar that’s because it bears resemblance to both The Old Dark House and The Ghoul both thirties classics ripe for the Cooney treatment and updating with extra – intended – laughs for the Carry On generation. It works too even though the humour was distinctly parochial, the New York Times reviewer being especially scathing of this “vulgar”, “inept” “ostensible British farce…”

A classic Connors cor!

Pat Jackson directs with swift efficiency making the most of every creaking door, hidden passageway and shadowy figure combing their effect on nervy-Ernie with a hit on the audience. What the New York Times failed to recognise is the film’s knowing heart: a post-modern awareness that is both comforting and satirically funny. Syd and Ken are everymen – thrust into this madness so we can have a laugh on our behalf, all sat together with post-war austerity barely giving way to a decade just about to swing.

Well worth a watch and readily available from Amazon and the rest.