On the Buses

Watching this for the first time since I saw it and its mother series as a kid, I was struck not by its supposed naffness, nor by its vulgar humour but by its sheer authenticity. Surely the true face of the British Working class has never been so accurately portrayed. Here are people in all their sweaty, ugly, sexed-up un-glory. Everything has to be a vulgar laugh, sensitivity is outlawed, sex is a constant obsession and everyone is potentially the butt of a joke. Authority is mocked but never really challenged and money is continuously short. If, in years to come, people want to understand what it was like to be working class in Britain in the early 1970s, they could do no worse than catch this film!

We seem to live in a world of "watch what you say & do". Today's sitcoms are ruled by very well calculated PC rules. We have all embraced this refreshingly new approach to behavior. Unfortunately we are losing our sitcom heritage. We can now only laugh at a very narrow band of situations e.g "man bashing" seems to be a favourite with modern writers. Can't blame 'em, they've got bills to pay as well as me & thee. On The Buses gives us a window into the past. Prior to the 1980's this is how life was. I know I've lived there. All the characters are charicatures (eh?) of people we have known and either loved or hated. Mum (Doris Hare) is holding on to her long suffering but loyal son Stan (Reg) who never gets his way with the ladies as does Jack (Bob). This is one of the mysteries of the universe!!. Blakey is the boss we've all had & hated. Bring back British Sitcom.

So what if this movie is non to pc and treats women as objects of lust. There are people who will hate this, moan about it, analyze and deconstruct it. IT'S A MOVIE!! If you don't like it don't watch it. Admittedly it is not to everyones taste but these will be the people who are too young to remember the series or the times. For the rest of us who do remember, we look back with nostalgia, see the old cars, advertisements the way people behaved and we smile. Harmless fun that does no one any harm. There is far worse on the screens now days, movies where every second word is a swear word, bullets flying, on screen sex. sometimes it's a breath of fresh air to see something that is a little different from a bygone age.

When Inspector Blake's (Stephen Lewis) decision to hire women bus drivers threatens Stan (Reg Varney) and Jack's (Bob Grant) over-time windfalls and lay-about ways, the boys take time off from seducing clippies, afternoon delights, and dealing with Stan's dysfunctional family (including an enormously pregnant Olive) to ensure that the ladies don't last. As I always liked the characters in the original show, I decided to give the film version a butchers. Not surprisingly, the plot is thin, the gags painfully predictable (has there ever been a sidecar in a comedy that stays attached to the motorcycle?) and there's lots of cleavage and frilly knickers on display. Stan has a certain short charm but seeing his mate Jack as a highly accomplished lothario is a bit of a challenge (in the TV series, even Blakey got in a few wisecracks about Jack's prominent choppers). Stan's hapless sister Olive (Anna Karen) and her miserable husband Arthur (Michael Robbins) are hilarious (to this day I can't hear the name 'Arthur' without hearing Olive's plaintive voice), as is the much put-upon Inspector Blake, whose mustache-muffled snickering whenever he thinks he has Stan and Jack on the ropes still cracks me up. Needless to say, as a tamely raunchy British 'sex comedy' from the early 70s, the show has something to offend everyone in our more righteous (judgemental?) era, so if you're adverse to displays of toxic (but silly) masculinity, stereotypical (but silly) femininity, and sexist (but silly) 'woman-driver' jokes, I'd suggest that you skip this relic.

Despite almost universal condemnation these days as one of Hammer's worst, this film adaptation of a popular TV comedy was the most successful film of the year at the British box office. I watched it with some trepidation, knowing it to be resented by the majority of Hammer fans, but to my relief I found it a witty, knowing and altogether nostalgic '70s comedy.

Like the best of the genre, ON THE BUSES provides a time capsule of working class life in the 1970s. The humour feels natural rather than forced, the characters feel true to life and the situations feel realistic. Yes, there's a preoccupation with sex and the film itself is crushingly misogynistic by modern standards, but the same can be said about comparable '70s movies of the era like CARRY ON LOVING or CARRY ON GIRLS.

As ever, my favourite character in the whole thing is Stephen Lewis's dogged inspector, but it's the dependable Reg Varney who holds the whole thing together as the lead. The storyline, which encapsulates a battle of the sexes, works well and there's a definite predominance of successful over unsuccessful gags. If you're a fan of British comedy in the 1970s then this is a must.