Don't Just Lie There, Say Something!

Nobody really makes this type of film anymore, and the film world is a lot poorer for it in my opinion. Certainly we could do worse as a nation to make more comedy like this than to made endless "Lock, Stock..." gangster clones. Basically, it's a film version of a typical stage farce, with everything you'd expect bar the local vicar. I'll admit it's not everyone's cup of tea but suspend your disbelief.

It does sag in places (!) as the lie-upon-lie builds up, but what many people don't seem to notice is the slick interplay between the leads, the funny dialogue, and Leslie Phillips in full "well he-llo" mode. There is also the advantage of a great supporting cast, of whom Joan Sims typically shines in a thankless "nagging wife" role. Her advice to someone getting married "pray... watch..." is delivered superbly.

It's the type of thing that would never trouble an Oscar jury, but if some of the recent winners are anything to go by (hello Monsters Ball, Cold Mountain....), this can only be in its favour.

Basically, this is a fun film that you can see time and time again. You can't say that for a lot of films. Thrillers get less thrilling when you know whodunnit, for example.

To use the words forced, stagey, inane and desperate to describe this film would be a severe understatement. The majority of this film seems to consist of characters hiding under beds or in closets, running around in their underwear or less or putting on "funny" accents to get themselves out of compromising positions (and I use the term loosely).

The characters in this film are incredibly dumb but there's a method behind this. They have to be dumb otherwise if they acted like sensible human beings all the plot strands would be tied up in about 20 minutes.

This is the sort of film they don't make anymore and with good reason.

Crown minister Leslie Phillips and back-bench friend Brian Rix are co-sponsoring an anti-smut bill. This has a group of youngster upset, so they kidnap Rix on the day he is to be wed, drug him, and call the papers and police to come visit the orgy and wreck his standing. Meanwhile, Phillips is supposed to be on his way to Scotland, but has arranged for a rendez-vous -- two, as it turns out. All these collide in one large flat into which youngsters, police, fiancees, secretaries, mistresses, and senile Opposition MP Derek Royle are crammed into various doors, closets, and under beds.

I imagine Michael Pertwee's script performed better as a door-slamming stage farce than the movie it was turned into. Valiant efforts to open it up via editing cuts only serve to destroy the sharp timing such efforts need. Still, the ladies, including Joan Sims, Joanna Lumley, Myra Frances, and Nicola Rowley, are lovely, and if you have patience, the second half is better timed for this sort of nonsense, and Rix is quite good, and Phillips (whom youngsters may recall as the voice of the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter is always amusing in a fast-thinking, scoundrelly way.

The idea was sorted into a TV show, MEN OF AFFAIRS.

What a dire soul-destroying chore it was sitting through this archaic piece of 'entertainment' from that bleak era when the Confessions films and 'On the Buses' were considered the height of British comedy. The only reason I watched this was because that incorrigible cad Leslie Philips was in the cast and – so I thought – he's always worth a viewing. Sadly, even he can't salvage anything from this mess. A number of people run around a politician's flat (or 'love nest' as The Sun would have it) in various states of undress, frantically trying to avoid one another or engage in extramarital or mercenary sex. It's incredible to believe that a generation just once removed from my own used to find this rubbish funny. Avoid at all costs.

This film showed the sad direction in which the film industry was headed.This film was released at a time when Rank closed hundreds of Odeons and Gaumonts including my local.An acknowledgement that they had run out of ideas to compete with television.Actors agreeing to appear in rubbish such as this was their acknowledgement that they were not going to bother with the quality of the script just play the part and take the money.Brian Rix typically spends most of his time with his trousers off.His type of broad farce doesn't come over well on film and this film represented the tail end of his film career.Most of the rest of his acting career was spent at the Whitehall Theatre