The Best House In London (1969) & Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969)
As the 1960's came to a close, so too did the glorious reign of Britain as the white-hot center of popular culture exported throughout the world........
And wow, was it fun while it lasted......
Bond films took the cinema world to unheard of heights of world-wide fandom, while the Beatles did the very same for pop music. A slew of British directors and actors all became flavors-of-the-decade, jump starting the prolific careers of new young leading men....Albert Finney, Peter O' Toole, Richard Harris, David Hemmings, Ian Bannon, Alan Bates, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Patrick McGoohan.....and the actress contingent led by Susannah York, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, Maggie Smith, Glenda Jackson, Diana Rigg among many others...... in the Beatles' wake, came the massive 'British Invasion' of the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark 5, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers...(and dozens of other groups I can't remember cause movies were my main passion, not music....)
By the start of the 70's though, the party was over, for a multitude of reasons best left to better film historians than I. The British film industry, once bursting with big budget productions filled with international stars, reverted to making ultra cheap feature length versions of popular TV shows, unfit for audiences anywhere outside the U.K. The once celebrated Hammer horror factory tried freshening up their tired new entries with sex and nudity, which only hastened their collapse.
So maybe it was inevitable that in the 60's final year, British movies resorted to one of their oldest, traditional genres.....the ribald, bawdy sex farce. The ingredients always included double-entendres in every line of dialogue spit out by cleavage-heavy girls giggling madly as they fend off the men in their lives, who gibber madly with arousal. Similar to the groin level comedy of American burlesque, nothing resembling real sex ever occurs, other than views of arms and legs flailing about under the sheets.
But before British films succumbed to cheapjack TV knockoffs, came these two fairly ambitious productions. Both of them feature top-of-the-line actors working amid grand, meticulous recreations of past times depicted in each film.....the 17th and 18th centuries.
First up, let's return to the teeming, tumultuous, mud drenched streets of 17 century London in Lock Up Your Daughters!, based on a hit musical play that took its origins from a play by Henry Fielding (the Tom Jones novelist)
No music in earshot, but a bevy of bodice-ripping babes (Susannah York, Elaine Taylor, Vanessa Howard) and a panting trio of rogues lusting for them. (Jim Dale, Tom Bell and Ian Bannen). Adding to this already busy roster - Peter Bayliss and Glynis Johns as a horny, corrupt judge as his equally randy wife ,and the familiar growling bulldog Peter Bull as a priest who's as sex-crazed as the rest of them.
But above all, the premier centerpiece here is Christopher Plummer as the well named aristocratic dandy Lord Foppington. It's hard for me to even attempt a description of Plummer.....stealing the show (and loving it) as he preens, minces and flounces across the screen, wearing a wig larger than a 5 tiered wedding cake.
Director Peter Coe, seems far more obsessed with a realistic orchestration of all the chaotic frenzy in the crowded streets surrounding his actors.....(very similar to director Richard Lester's streets of ancient Rome in "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum") Amid the non-stop noise, you'll strain to hear those rapid-fire quips rattled off as the cast navigates their way through cock fights, pie fights, assorted riots and oceans of mud.
A little exhausting to watch 102 minutes of it, but still a down 'n dirty, bedsheet rumpling good time if you revel in ribaldry 3 stars (***).
Also in 1969, along came The Best House In London, moving ahead the same kind of London lustfulness into the 18th Victorian era......(complete with wink-wink cameo appearances and references to celebrities of the day, like Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes.)
As opposed to the brownish grunge of 'Lock Up Your Daughters' this London is richly reproduced in ripe colors by production designer Wilfred Shingleton ("The African Queen", "Great Expectations")
And to be honest, it's a little easier to sit through than "Lock Up" s city wide tour of of muck and mobs. Director Philip Saville doesn't much care about the rambunctious London masses anyway. He's too busy making sure you hear and savor every smutty one-liner in Denis Norden's original screenplay.
Best of all, we once again are treated to a veritable dream team line-up of Britain's most gifted, instantly recognizable actors. David Hemmings, in a rare comedy outing, takes dual roles of identical cousins with competing agendas.....one's a naive crusading social activist, the other a depraved noble who's tasked with running a government sponsored whorehouse....(for the common good, or course.... to keep the strumpets from cluttering up the streets and devaluing property.)
Given the secret blessing of the country's ruling class, this luxurious house of ill repute offers a full menu of fantasy rooms offering a wide variety of kinky scenarios, a virtual Victorian Vegas.....and what happens in London, stays in London.
And as you Anglophiles guiltily giggle along with the perpetual roll-out of single-entendre jokes, you can also spot George Sanders, Warren Mitchell, Maurice Denham, Martita Hunt, Tessie O' Shea, Ferdy Mayne, and that eternal threatening henchman, Milton Reid.
Much fun for all and even throws in a vast colorful airship equal to the ones seen in "The Assassination Bureau" and Disney's "The Island At The Top Of The World". For those who love a good wallow in low comedy from time to time, it's 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2). If this is sound like your lascivious cup of tea, sip deeply.....
No comments:
Post a Comment