Privates on Parade

The main problem with this movie is the over-dominating personality of John Cleese, doing his authoritarian idiot stuff as he did in Fawlty Towers and earlier in Monty Python. Trouble is, in the context of a 1940s Army entertainment unit, this characterisation is just not right. A similar scenario could be seen a decade or so earlier in TV show 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', with Windsor Davies in what is approximately the Cleese role here. Very different and much more effective.

'Privates' does however have other compensations - good within the cast are Michael Elphick, Simon Jones, Joe Melia, David Bamber, and Nicola Pagett. Best of all is the much-missed Denis Quilley as Terri, that painted captain cavorting about and by far the funniest thing on screen.

I enjoyed this comedy of wits and one liners. The play was recently resurrected here in the U.S. but I didn't get a chance to see it. So I ran across this movie/video not because of John Cleese of Monty Python fame but Nicola Pagett who I had seen in PBS's Upstairs Downstairs. Cleese and the other cast members win me over in this spoof of the British occupying of Malaysia in 1948. Cleese & company are a scratch lot of misfits, some veterans from WW2 others are newbies and as for Nicola Pagett she's not in the military at all even though she wears a uniform. She's called 'Acting Lieutenant' Sylvia Morgan. Very funny since being former military myself I've never heard any rank in any army designated 'Acting Lieutenant'. They are a British example of the American USO called here SADUSEE. The leader and organiser of the troupe is Denis Quiley who operates under Cleese's authority. Quiley & co. perform drag queen skits for the Brit soldiers as well as for friendly Malaysian troups. These skits are hilarious. To see Quiley(who recently passed)dressed as a Carmen Miranda type will make you rewind the tape over & over again just to believe what you had seen. Quiley is marvelous as the outrageous sissified Terry. (The end of the film is ironic but I won't give it away). Some fine Brit character actors, such as a young Bruce Payne, Michael Elphick(great as the double agent Sergeant) & John Quayle (from some Masterpiece Theatre programmings) in a brief appearance as an officer with a truck full of shot up men.

Cleese is given some great lines here as is Quiley and their performances stand out. Much of this film is sort of reminiscient of any episode of M.A.S.H. if you will. Just think of Klinger in one of his drag skits. Or even a Bob Hope series of skits gone awry. This flick sticks in your mind longer and longer after each viewing. So open your mind, dim the lights, set the popcorn(that's what I did) and let Cleese, Quiley and their band of cutups crack you up.

(** this film has a lot of profanity even though it's supposed to be an old fashioned military comedy that takes place in the 40s. The dialogue is quite spicy. And also Pagett has one bare breasted sex scene while seducing a young new intelligence recruit.)

I have seen this film about 4 or 5 times now and it gets better each time I see it. The acting is better than superb, and the plot line is well told. The colour and just the good fun of the film is a joy. When you think of the difficultly of what these "boys" had to do you must wonder in orr at how good they were. To say that this film is a gay film is just silly, everyone can enjoy it. You get a feel for all the people and when the action gets going (and you will know what I mean when you see the film) it is quiet a shock to the sytem. British flaking at its very best. I could watch this film many times and never get fed up with it.

A bad film. It can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a goofy comedy about flamboyantly gay showtune performers or a tragic and realistic war movie. Any attempts on its part to be both at the same time are unsuccessful, in my opinion.

Big fans of John Cleese might be tempted to watch this movie thinking that Cleese is enjoyable to watch whatever he's in, but he really has nothing to work with in this material. He plays it very straight (in more ways than one) and the filmmakers don't even manage to squeak much humor out of this contrast with the other members of the performing troupe.

Skip this film.

After reading a bunch of negative reviews of this film I thought I should post my own. This is a comedy-drama, based on a theatrical play/ It is funny, sad, and serious, sometimes all at once. It has made up it's mind what type of film it's trying to be. It's about a theatrical unit doing a touring variety show in the Malayisan jungle at the very end on WWII.

It's also about a commanding officer who had missed the war and is now trying to get his taste of the war by using this unit he's in command of to fight some kind of enemy. It's also about an unscruplous sargent who is using this unit to arm the rebel soldiers and make some money on it. It's also about a poor eurasian woman who is pregnant by this sargent and has to trick another soldier to get an abortion to lose the baby.

The film does this by using humor which is something I do in my everyday life to get thru a trying day, and what's wrong with that. The one character that holds the film together is the non-military head of the acting troupe, Terry Dennis (Denis Quiley, in a award callibar performance). Terry who changes all male names to female including "Jessica Christ", and has a heart for everyone in the troupe is the glue that holds this film together. He is not a stereotype performance but a flesh and blood character. John Cleese is the colonel Blimpish officer in charge of the troupe, who doesn't really understand theatrical types, nor does he want to. Cleese is fine in the role, so is the rest of the cast including Nicola Pagget as the eurasian woman and the always wonderful Simon Jones as Eric Young-Love. Jones created his part in the original stage production, and later on played the Cleese part in a production Off-Broadway here in New York with Jim Dale as Terry Dennis. Denis Quiley and Joe Melia also created their parts in the original Royal Shakespeare production of the play.

Don't listen to the negative reviews, try this for yourselves, I think you'll like it. You may, like me, shed a tear or two before it's over, and then laugh so hard you'll fall out of your seat during the end credits.