If they are the cowboys we’re supposed to be the Indians. Gerald Arthur Otley (Tom Courtenay) is a petty crook and wannabe antique dealer mistaken for a British secret agent when he sleeps on a couch belonging to his friend Eric Lambert (Edward Hardwicke) who’s really a suspected influence pedlar and document smuggler and who is found murdered while Otley wakes up two days on the runway at Gatwick. Otley trails double agents and double martinis at a posh cocktail party before discovering the villains have the cooperation of top government officials. He’s pegged to pose as a possible defector to oust the criminal mastermind who plans to sell stolen documents vital to national security to any enemy agent with the most money. British secret agent Imogen (Romy Schneider) first has Otley beaten up by her thugs before combining forces to go after the real villains … I was last year’s winner of the Duke of Edinburgh Award for Lethargy. Directed by Dick Clement and co-written with his regular collaborator Ian La Frenais, this adaptation of a novel by Northern Irish author Martin Waddell is funny and characterful, laced with real wit and a bright British cast including James Bolam (from Clement and La Frenais’ The Likely Lads), Alan Badel as MI5 overlord Hadrian, James Villiers as the resurrecting spy Hendrickson, Phyllida Law (Emma Thompson’s mum and you can see the shared mannerisms), Geoffrey Bayldon as a police superintendent, Freddie Jones as an epicene gallerist, the dulcet tones of radio DJs Pete Murray and Jimmy Young, and Leonard Rossiter – as a hitman! Great mileage is got out of the mistaken identity scenario, everyone changing sides constantly, with Courtenay wonderfully charismatic as the feckless cheeky chappie protagonist street trader in way over his head between teams of rival spies who believe everyone has a price, while Schneider has fun as the perky intelligence agent. With fantastic location shooting (by Austin Dempster), the action scenes are atypical of the spy genre although the golf course sequence will remind you of a certain Bond movie, a titles sequence in Portobello Road market shows uncooperative shoppers staring into the camera as it tracks back from Courtenay strolling among the stalls and shops, there’s a rumble among the houseboats at Cheyne Walk, a sequence at the Playboy Club and a disastrous driving test that turns into a nutty car chase. This comic approach to the wrong man spy thriller is uniquely entertaining. Damian Harris, Robin Askwith and Kenneth Cranham play kids and the music and theme song are by Stanley Myers. I’m Gerard Arthur Otley and I’ve had enough
He grunts and snores but I’m kind of getting used to it. Sarah (Beattie Edmondson) is the underachieving secondary school English teacher whose boyfriend has just dumped her and she inherits her grandmother’s pugnacious pug Patrick despite despising dogs. While learning to live with him, she dates the socially awkward local vet (Ed Skrein), her BFF Becky (Emily Atack) persuades her to run a 5K even though she is totally unable to compete, she bitches about her superior older barrister sister and falls for Ben (Tom Bennett) who turns out to be the father of one of her students – whose parents’ divorce is sending her off the rails to the extreme point of not showing up for her GCSE English exam … Nobody covers themselves with glory in what is essentially a valentine to the loveliness of Richmond Upon Thames with its herds of deer and upwardly posh population. There is a laughable nod to social realism by having Sarah stumble upon her male students ripping the wheels off a car. This is so carelessly ‘written’ by Vanessa Davis that Skrein does not have a name: in the cast list he’s ‘Vet’. Edmondson’s real-life mother Jennifer Saunders turns up just in time to see her cross the finish line where Patrick has finally escaped a predatory cat. As bloody if. Patrick of course is not the point. Miaow! There’s a soundtrack of Amy Macdonald songs, which might please some people. Mildly directed by Mandie Fletcher, who directed Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.
Beware the dwarf! San Francisco. Catholic archbishop Thorncrest (Eugene Roche) returns home, walks into a room and puts on a record. He opens his cupboard and sees the reflection of a similar looking man staring back at him. He turns around quickly and is killed by a knife thrown into his chest. While attending a party overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, recent divorcée and shy librarian Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) sees a handsome young man, Tony (Chevy Chase) at the bar, who ruins the moment by stumbling and spilling all the drinks and making inappropriate comments. Gloria’s friend encourages her to open herself to new experiences so when she’s driving home, Gloria picks up an attractive man named Bob ‘Scotty’ Scott (Bruce Solomon) when she sees him next to his broken down car at Powell and Market streets. She impulsively accepts his invitation to join him at the movies that evening, and before they part ways, he asks her to take his pack of cigarettes to help him curb his smoking. Unknown to her, Scotty has secreted a roll of undeveloped film in the cigarette pack. That evening, a seriously wounded Scotty meets Gloria at the Nuart cinema and asks her about the film. He bleeds into her popcorn and warns her to beware of the dwarf before he dies. When his body mysteriously disappears while Gloria seeks help from the manager (Chuck McCann) she is unable to convince anyone of what happened. At home she tells her elderly and eccentric neighbour and landlord Mr. Hennessey (Burgess Meredith) of the events. He shares his life with a snake called Esme (Shirley Python) and practises martial arts and is immediately sympathetic to Gloria. The following day, Gloria is attacked in her library by albino Whitey Jackson (William Frankfather) who tries to use ether on her. She runs off and hides in a singles bar where she asks a stranger, Stanley Tibbets (Dudley Moore) to take her home. Stanley is an aspiring British womaniser, assumes she is picking him up to have sex, mixes a cocktail laced with Spanish Fly and puts the Bee Gees on the record player while lowering his bed from the wall to have sex with what he assumes is a willing Gloria who is shocked and flees, returning to her apartment. There she is attacked by a man with a scar (Don Calfa) who demands the cigarette pack Scotty had given her. When he attempts to strangle her with a scarf, Gloria stabs him in the stomach with a pair of knitting needles and calls the police for help. When the attacker tries to stop her, he is killed by a knife thrown by Whitey through the kitchen window, and Gloria faints. When she wakes up, all traces of what has happened have disappeared. She is unable to convince two San Francisco police officers, Lt. Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase) – whom she had met at that party – and his partner Inspector ‘Fergie’ Ferguson (Brian Dennehy), or even her landlord Mr. Hennessy that she was attacked. Gloria is then kidnapped by Turk Farnum (Ion Tedorescu), the chauffeur of a limousine in which she earlier had seen Whitey, but she manages to subdue him with mace and a set of brass knuckles given to her by her friend and fellow library employee, Stella (Marilyn Sokol) who is consumed with the idea of being raped. Tony discovers that Scotty, an undercover SFPD inspector who had received a tip that a major assassination – on the Pope (Cyril Magnin) – would take place in the city on a certain night, was investigating contract killer Rupert Stiltskin (aka the Dwarf). Now that he is assigned to protect Gloria from her would-be killers, Tony takes her to his houseboat, where the two fall in love… What’s that? Binoculars? Are you into that, too? Me, as well. I read about it in Penthouse. Just a second. We just love Goldie Hawn. And we love pretty much every single thing she’s ever done: now how many actors or actresses can you say that about? Seeing her makes us smile. Was she ever more utterly adorable than here as the woman tangled up in a web of intrigue not of her own doing? And this Hitchcockian farce from the pen of Colin Higgins is screamingly funny. As quiet divorced librarian Goldie becoming embroiled in a plot to assassinate the Pope offers up several set pieces recognisable from Hitchcock’s films. The ensemble that includes an albino killer, a dangerous dwarf, a snake, a sexy cop Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase making his charming debut) and a most unseemly setup at the Catholic bishopric with the Archbishop/his identical twin brother and Miss Casswell (Rachel Roberts) encompasses a world of silliness and threat as well as opportunities for a slew of ridiculous antics, all gleefully purveyed. You’re a really nice girl and I’m a nice guy, and you’re very pretty with or without cleavage, and what do you say… would you like to take a shower? There’s a brilliant sidebar relationship with sex addict Stanley (Dudley Moore, in a star-making role offered to Tim Conway for whom it was originally written), regular interludes with Stella who’s convinced every man is after her for sex; and all the while Goldie is trying not to get killed for something she knows nothing about. Calling this a romantic comedy or a neo-noir thriller or police procedural or a skit on the untoward goings-on behind closed Catholic doors (this was after all the era of the Pope dying mysteriously supposedly at the hands of an American-Lithuanian cardinal with ties to the Mafia…) doesn’t quite do it yet it’s all those things and more with that ineffable quotient of star power or pizzazz that’s hard to replicate or express. It’s laugh-a-minute hilarity from the get-go with Barry Manilow’s songs to soothe the fevered brow as the antics proceed at breathtaking pace performed with gusto by a wonderful cast. By the end, can we even remember why the roll of film was so important?! Or amid Goldie’s ditzing and Chevy’s bumbling that this was potentially a Farrah Fawcett-Harrison Ford starrer?! A must-see. Gee Scotty, I don’t think there is a dwarf in this movie
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