Not Tonight, Darling

I saw this movie because I am a fan of Luan Peters and she looked great.

She was playing the role of a bored housewife....not trying to act! I believe this was made nearly 40 years ago...before all the digital, the CG, the high-tech that modern filmmakers are blessed with, but with a the little money that was available told a simple story of it's time.

The camera-work was unobtrusive...thank the Lord, unlike nowadays when cameras can go up somebody's nose or come out of their ****, for no other reason except... that the camera can! The mood of suburbia and the boredom was well displayed.

Someone writes, "Stop me if you've heard this one before: A bored housewife. A frigid husband. A scheming Lothario. A steamy affair. Secret photographs. Uh oh, blackmailed! Now she must star in some X-rated tapes or hubby will find out about her extra-marital activities....." This was 40 years ago...This was the original! The idea was so good, it's been copied hundreds of times DUH!

The people in the Olympics long ago ran as fast as they could in their time. Their numbers are laughingly slow compared to now, but they did their best and we should not make comparisons. Art is not comparative, art should be judged on its own merits. Luan rules OK!

NOT TONIGHT, DARLING is a surprisingly endearing British skin flick despite the obvious shortcomings of the plot and cast. A virtually forgotten low budget effort, this chronicles the adventures of a bored housewife who struggles with the inattentions of her husband and the Peeping Tom who spies on her when she's getting changed.

There really is no more plot to it than that - this is just a 'kitchen sink' style drama, enlivened with some sex scenes and a bit of skin here and there. Despite the fact that they're generally hopeless, I always get a kick out of this era of British film, where the scuzziness is outweighed by a great sense of realism and era authenticity. Hell, I feel nostalgic and I wasn't even there!

Fans will no doubt enjoy the cheesy song contributed by guest band 'Thunderclap Newman' - beaten only in terms of cheesiness by Stoneground's cameo in Dracula 1972 AD - and the general state of poor acting, particularly from the wooden male actors. Still, lead actress Luan Peters (TWINS OF EVIL) is a revelation: incredibly voluptuous and giving a sympathetic performance to boot.

A London housewife (Luan Peters) is bored with her sexually cold husband (Jason Twelvetrees -- and yes he is that wooden!) and is lead/blackmailed in to temptation with an Australian travelling salesman (Vincent Ball) and his rather more unbuttoned pals.

There are many films around where the story behind the film is far more interesting than the film itself. There are also films which are more interesting for the background than the foreground. This is both.

London in the early 70's was in a strange hangover of a place -- vice had been clamped down upon and the new thing were films that were sold as sexy, but were actually nothing of the kind (but hey, they have your money by then). Today this is less sexy than post watershed TV!

The one thing that I learn from watching this is that body painting had left the London sex scene as of 1971 and that heavy blue mascara could be worn all day long. Even in bed. Love the last sightings of the those wooden finished cars too.

Thunderclap Newman come on -- and don't (repeat don't) perform their only hit "Something in the Air."

Liz Taylor once said that she won an Oscar of Butterfield 8 because she had an utter contempt for the part (and her life at that time) and the Academy mistook it for great acting. No such luck for Peters who needs her whole life (on screen) to come apart to register emotion.

This is a film that has the air of multiple failure. The acting is cold and wooden and has a pretty bad script. Indeed if you stick with it, it doesn't even reach a conclusion to its rather weak storyline. That really twists the knife in the wound.

Antony Sloman (the director) is said to be one of the biggest film buffs in the UK -- but this proves that watching a lot of good movies doesn't mean you can learn a thing from them!

Confirming my theory that the 70s were the decade that taste forgot this movie has the production values of a school play and looks like it was shot in various crew members flats.

By modern standards it is utterly unsexy - it as also unfunny, undramatic, badly lit, the leaden dialogue is almost inaudible (spectacularly drowned out by traffic noises at one point) and there is no resolution to the incredibly thin story.

There is nothing to recommend it at all apart from the odd flash of breast - and a brief, weird interlude where two of the characters watch the band Thunderclap Newman rehearse a couple of numbers. (I guess that might be of historical interest to musicologists of the era... but it's easy to see why they only got to release one album.) The two watchers were shot without any idea of the music they were supposed to be listening to and probably had no playback to respond to so they tap their feet, nod their heads, and snap their fingers (groovy man!) in several random rhythms simultaneously - none of them unfortunately matching the music.

Avoid. (Why doesn't IMDb allow you to rate films as a zero ?)

Back in 1971, if you had never seen this and someone summarised it as "young blonde wife, frustrated by her husband's total lack of libido, decides to explore her sexuality", then I'm sure you'd have parted with your 50p at the cinema just as I would.

However, you'd have barely had time to lick your drink-on-a-stick before you'd have realised you'd been sold a pup.

The film says nothing, the acting is dire, the direction non- existent, the storyline meanders, wanders, then concludes by saying "make of this what you will. I give up"

However, this film is not without redemption. Here's why:

a) If you ever wondered what a seedy Soho strip club looked like in the daytime, this is for you. And what about that compere? ("Okay, remove your raincoats")

b) Captain Harrison (Bill Shine) may not be on screen for long but he does have the best lines. ("He called me Bill. Well, it was my name)

c) You really have to see the camera-work in the health club scenes to believe it. The young lady on the vibrator belt especially.

d) Thunderclap Newman playing live (along the lines of The Yardbirds in 'Blow Up' or Alan Price in 'O Lucky Man'). A previous reviewer mentioned this would interest those interested in the music of the era. It does.

e) The, shall we say, 'incredible' dream scene in the grocer's shop. Hard to believe and more than a touch of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band about it (if you recall Magical Mystery Tour).

So, all in all, a dreadful film if you look on it as a film - but a fascinating slice of what 1971 was capable of, if you come at it from another angle!