Hattie

As with so many biopics it covers the basics but not especially accurately. The lives of people are complicated and impossible to cover in 90 mins so its to be expected but there are quite a few issues with this one.

I just finished watching Hattie which is apparently a bio-pic about Hattie Jacques.

Now, the movie was average. But what annoys me with these bio-pics is they are supposed to be the life stories of the people they are filming about, but in most cases there is so much crap added that just isn't true.

But being a fan of the Carry On movies, I had to see it. I have seen the Kenneth Williams bio-pic and Cor Blimey! which were both quite good... but this just wasn't as good.

This movie was not really about her life, just about her affair with her much younger house mate. She still loves her husband and doesn't want him to move out even though he knows about the affair.

It is very uncomfortable to watch some scenes as it is quite sad to see her husband being treated the way he does. He seemed like a nice guy and just didn't want to lose his wife so was willing to share her!

There are a few scenes in the film that were re-created on the Carry On Cabby set, which was interesting to see and fun to watch. But all in all I was disappointed in the movie. I was hoping we would know more about Hattie and more about her life instead of just her sexual life.

I give this film 5 out of 10...

Not a bad movie, but not what I wanted a film to be. It really didn't have to be about Hattie Jacques, it could have been about anyone.

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There have been a few dramas recently based on the lives of the great British comedians of the 50's and 60's and Hattie is one of the best I've seen.

The acting is first rate, especially from the three principals. The period setting is well captured in the interior scenes - there are very few exterior shots, probably due to the budget. Another reviewer makes much of Hattie being a chubby lady but she was undoubtedly sexy and more so in real life than for the characters she played on screen. This is something else the film conveys very well.

The script is excellent - the real stand-out feature of the production. It's multi-layered and pays homage to the Carry On style of double entendre and elevates it to a much higher level. "Hattie" avoids being seedy but doesn't shy away from the details of this most unusual love story. Poor old John Le Mesurier! I'm off to form his appreciation society.

There is no villain of this story - Hattie and her husband John are almost strangers in their own home from the way they are portrayed, and none of this need happen if they had learned to communicate, rather than pass like ships in the night. Then along comes a beautiful man, with issues of his own, who gives Hattie something she's been lacking for a long time - the belief that she was a beautiful, sexual being.

And regarding Hattie's weight: she is shown in this to be unhappy with her size, but being big gave her work that she would not have had otherwise. One can sling mud at her, call her horrible names, but the public encouraged her to stay that way.

The sensitive handling of this piece does exactly what it should - it shows that it was a sad situation where people failed to talk to one another and took things, and each other, for granted.

Not much happens in this episode, except for Hattie Jacques (Ruth Jones) having an affair with John Davies (Aidan Turner) and eventually leaving her husband John le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst). The real problem lies with le Mesurier, who is so laid back as to be inactive, with little or no skill in the bed department. Compare with Davies, who shows the capacity of a stag in the way he ruts Jacques in the bedroom.

So far, so good. But that's mostly what the play is about. We learn little about Jacques's career, not that of le Mesurier, while Davies - played by an actor more celebrated for getting his kit off in POLDARK - is nothing more than a coarse yob. We learn at the end of the episode that eventually left Jacques for someone else, which seems vaguely appropriate for such an itinerant figure.

Jones gives a creditable impersonation of Jacques, but le Mesurier as portrayed by Bathurst is nothing more than a wet blanket, completely unlike the man we came to know as Sereeant Wilson in DAD'S ARMY. He lacks any strength of character, even when Joan rescues him from a potentially difficult situation as the third man in a love triangle.