Rising Damp

RISING DAMP is a classic comedy which starred Leonard Rossiter as a landlord who rented his flat out to three people : Miss Jones a rather plain woman who Rigsby has the hots for and a couple of students Alan and Philip . It should be pointed out that Philip is black and Rigsby is while not exactly racist rather condescending to anyone different from his little Englander mentality .

As with a great number of successful ITV sit-coms RISING DAMP was made into a feature length movie , though it should be pointed out this seems rather belated since it was made in 1980 with most of the other cinema versions of ITV sitcoms being produced in the early 1970s . It should also be mentioned that in the TV series Alan was played by Richard Beckinsale who died before this movie went into production so his role as Alan is played by Christopher Strauli with the other three regular cast members reprising their roles

No attempt is made to change or modify the strong points of the television series and everybody stays in character mainly because much of the screenplay is directly lifted from the TV series , bits like the draught blowing into Miss Jones ear and the love wood which featured in an episode of the TV series . There is a thin plot featuring a guest called Seymour played by Denholm Elliot which does give the opportunity of showing what a sycophantic snob Rigsby really is and for not changing the formula the film version deserves some credit . Check out the film version of GEORGE AND MILDRED to see what a really bad adaptation looks like

To begin with, I'm a massive fan of Rising Damp on the small screen and I've watched every episode countless times. When I first saw the movie I was quite eager to see all the original cast reunited (except from Richard Beckinsale who died tragically, he was a great actor).

If you are a big fan of the old TV episodes, then I would genuinely find absolutely nothing new here whatsoever. I was watching this movie with my jaw on the floor because I was stunned at how much of the scripts and scenes have been recycled from the TV series! Virtually everything that occurs in this movie is just re-done. I'm only glad that other writers of classic comedies didn't have this way of getting their shows on the big screen. Maybe if the writers thought of an original story instead of repeating old scripts word for word then this could have been so much better. Don't bother.

"Rising Damp" is now generally regarded as the finest sitcom produced by ITV, the BBC's main commercial rival, during its 50 years on air. Granted, that is not a hard title to win. But the claustrophobic saga of a boarding house where a stingy, nervy, clumsily lecherous landlord, two students and a fluttery but oddly alluring spinster play out an endless round-dance of mutual attraction is one of the perennial, timeless joys of British TV.

Like most hit comedies of the 1970s, "Rising Damp" earned a big-screen adaptation. The main cast stayed intact, except that Christopher Strauli subbed for the late Richard Beckinsale. Unfortunately Joe McGrath, a comedy specialist used to altogether broader material (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, The Goons) directed. Farce is played up at the expense of quieter and subtler pleasures.

McGrath, who helmed "The Magic Christian" and "The Great McGonagall", goes for a quick fire approach which Eric Chappell's screenplay-- like so many of these filmed sitcoms, it smells of three TV episodes scrambled together-- does not inhibit. Feeling one must open up the action and exploit a marginally larger budget, Chappell lets the film slip away too much from the house. To aficionados, even seeing the back garden and the street are a little shocking. However, scenes in pubs and restaurants echo the original, and the chief pleasure, Leonard Rossiter as Rupert Rigsby, is undimmed. Some well-loved schticks, such as Rigsby blowing in Miss Jones's ear after being told it's an erogenous zone, are reprised.

Rossiter broke the rules of modern screen acting. He mugged, twitched, grimaced, muttered semi-audibly and shamelessly hogged the camera, instead of underplaying stone-facedly and letting his confreres share the work. Yet he gets away with it every time, simply because Rigsby is a towering character in the great tradition of British "downer" comedy: the frustrated middle-aged male fantasist who is not quite up to living in the real world. That line began with Will Hay and ran through Hancock, Harold Steptoe, Captain Mainwaring and Basil Fawlty to Rigsby, with Derek Trotter and Victor Meldrew to come.

Guest star Denholm Elliott is a smooth ex-RAF conman after the gorgeous Miss Jones's modest savings. He may seem like another cinematic concession, but he is not unlike Peter Bowles's theatrical charmer of a lodger in the series. Elliott's underplaying is in fitting and masterful contrast to the spluttering sycophantic Rigsby. Don Warrington, the black student "chief's son with ten wives" patronised and envied by Rigsby, is gloriously suave, though victim of a disconcerting plot twist at the end.

This potted version is not the best of its breed, but for condensing Rossiter's tour de force it is worth catching.

I just recently heard there was a Rising Damp movie, and as a fan of the series, I was excited. I'm watching it now, and I find it ridiculous. I've already heard these jokes. Besides, the change of set from old, rundown house to a rather nice rundown house takes away from the atmosphere. Rigsby, Philip and Ruth reprise their roles, but watching this movie is like experiencing summer theater of a play after seeing it on Broadway. A sad, pathetic shadow of itself. I think perhaps if I hadn't seen the series, this would be acceptable. Also, I'm a big fan of Richard Beckinsale, and his absence is felt so deeply. Why did they feel the need to completely replace him? At least they slightly changed the character from a medical student to an art student, but Beckinsale's lines were given to him, making it slightly distasteful.

Leonard Rossiter and Frances de la Tour carry this film, not without a struggle, as the script was obviously hurriedly cobbled together out of old episodes. When it came out, this must have been a real disappointment as it's also done on a bus ticket budget. Attempts to move it out of the house - which is jarringly unrecognisable, a bad job all round there - with a picnic, fantasy sequences, rugby and a boxing match in the local gym simply don't work. Most of these are just character-light setups for a solitary not-particularly good gag. That said, the interplay of Rossiter and de la Tour (and anybody else with him) is mostly hilarious; they even manage to make a soda syphon gag work, but you can see the struggle with recycling a literally uninspired script that changes plot half way through. Don Warrington has very little to do except 'be black', and due to the random script hacks Christopher Strauli changes character at least twice. And in the end, as he often did in the TV series (though you might not remember - read the scripts), Eric Chappell lets you down with a 'time's up' ending. Were they that cynical, or just too desperate to be in the film business? Rossiter and de la Tour are always funny but as a film, it's a terrible postscript to a fondly remembered TV series. RIP.