The Best House in London

In Victorian London, Josephie Pacefoot (Joanna Pettet) leads the purity girls in demanding reform to save women from sex work. Flying enthusiast Benjamin Oakes (David Hemmings) comes to the rescue of Josephie and her fallen women. Various recollection of women 'suffering' their poor indignities perpetrated by men sometimes played by David Hemmings. He has an evil doppelganger.

It's a sex comedy and it's an odd one. The central theme is that these women are being taken advantaged by these men. In the recreations, the women are gleefully being 'taken advantaged'. It's not a funny joke. The choppy nature of the film doesn't help. It's one vignette after another and few are even mildly funny. I don't care about Josephie and Benjamin. The plot does sometimes take interesting turns, but I still don't care. It's an unfunny sex comedy.

I don't believe this is a spoiler, but I'm not sure what CRUCIAL plot element is so extremely sensitive viewers beware!

First I wanna say that I am not a picky "watcher" and I am fully aware of what others think of this movie (thats it's really bad), I wont say that it's a well thought up movie but I will say this:It's quite a unique movie, that's for sure. One of the reasons why I gave it a six is that in spite of all the bad press i found it to be intriguing, the plot may be a little strange but it was interesting to watch.

Now, I don't know what The "message" was supposed to be, it is about this girl that wants to save "fallen girls" (if I'm allowed to say that), but the movie also contains a lot of unnecessary partial-nudity. So one wonders, was it supposed to support anti-prostitution in a comedic way or was it just about entertaining the crowd by "showing some skin" on television? My opinion about the film is not based on whether it is meaningful or even tasteful. It's based on the fact that it was amusing for me to watch, a light read, one might call it, well if it was a book that is.

Six out of ten stars is pretty high but this is how I rate: 5 is OK (watchable) and ten is incredible. So six to me is good enough to want to watch again. I can't really explain why I found it so appeasing, I guess you're just gonna have to watch it yourselves.

The "bad" things about the movie were that it was a little confusing at times, like if there were scenes missing or something. As I mentioned before it was a little strange. I really can't judge the acting, since I don't usually watch old movies. They spoke a little different in movies back then.

That's really all I have to say about this film.

One of the earliest and certainly one of the most lavish of the British sex comedies that were to proliferate over the following decade, and typical of its time in the lampooning of Victorian double standards, a period then regarded as the ultimate in repression, prudery and hypocrisy. Today's audiences, reputedly as eager to take offence as any Victorian maiden aunt will no doubt find much of the content fairly deplorable, including a white actor 'yellowed-up' as a Chinese delegate. Though you don't have to be a censorious millennial to feel uneasy at some of the material, the jokes about rape and the flippant attitude to young girls in brothels, not to mention a particularly crass piece of innuendo in a song from a little girl, especially in the light of what we now know about the likes of Jimmy Savile and co at the time. David Hemmings stars in a dual role but struggles to convince in either. Despite all this Denis Norden's script does conjure up its share of amusing moments and it is fun spotting the numerous well-known actors and celebrities of the time popping up in cameo roles.

This is a classic Bad British Movie. Stalwarts of British comedy acting then and later, plus George Sanders, fight manfully against one of the stupidest plots imaginable - about a government-sponsored brothel for the gentry in late 19th century London. Basically, it was an excuse to have a lot of young women prancing about in lingerie, maid's uniforms, pretty frocks, while baring the occasional boob.

The plot, such as it is, is mainly advanced by extraordinarily implausible coincidences and bizarre happenings, and it's about as silly as you can get.

It's a formula movie, and it sucks. Unfortunately, it isn't quite awful enough to be 'so bad it's good'. It's just excruciating.

However, it was written by Denis Norden, who may have no idea about plot or character, but is a fantastic quip-writer. There are scores of literary and historical jokes: one- and two-liners, many of them screamingly funny if you're familiar with the works of Wilde, Dickens, Trollope, Galsworthy, Tennyson et al, and with historical people like Emmeline Pankhurst and Dr Livingstone. Jokes as good as these are wasted on this awful film.

The powers-that-be in Victorian London note the rise of street prostitution in their capital city and come up with the "French System." A kind of upmarket government-sanctioned brothel. However the public (and the police) aren't let on about their little secret.

This is the 1960's and the wild, the wacky, and the wacky-baccy has started to get to people's heads. This is one of those films that you feel is going to end up with a speed-ed up chase scene with all that you have learnt so far carefully junked -- but it doesn't quite get there. Close -- but not quite.

However it is also a classic case of setting up a plot and not bothering with it after a certain point in time. Maybe it didn't fit in with the bare breast quota laid down by the producers or maybe they spent too much time try to work out how to best film down a woman's cleavage?

The casting of the (now late) David Hemmings in a double role (bad/good) is a fatal mistake because both characters act pretty much the same and we only have hair colour to tell one from the other. After Blow Up he was seen as hot property although he is a cold fish who can't act a jot!

If you don't come from England and don't know Victorian literature then a lot is going to fly over your head. Given that the jokes are rare enough already the film can't afford their loss -- especially to a world audience. Indeed some of the jokes are in very bad taste: A little girl singing about her "little pussy" while we focus on George Sanders doing double-takes wouldn't be allowed today.

The Best House in London doesn't really have a plot more a laundry list of things that they want to get in. A mad Italian with an airship, the temperance movement, the Suffragettes, the upper/lower classes, people that are pro/anti the whore trade and women that don't want to be saved from a life of vice. Big money has been spent on the sets (complete with half dressed girls) and the left over change has gone on the script.

This is the kind of stuff I like watching late at night when I can't sleep (TCM puts it on that this time) when on-screen energy means more than common-sense. I am giving it a seven because I was entertained, but maybe that seven says just as much about me, where I come from and what I like than it does about the film. I can forgive campy nonsense -- can you?