Rising Damp

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.

"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.

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.

TV to Film adaptations are notorious for their failure to transfer any of the winning elements that made the show popular. I can't think of a worse proposition than to make a motion picture of the great sitcom Rising Damp. A sublime series that worked for it's performers, scripts and just as importantly it's claustrophobic setting. Even episodes that ventured outside the dingy house in which the characters share, it was often to a single set location for the whole of the second act. In a twenty five minute sitcom, those restrictions can be played up to create some magnificent comedy. On film however, the effect is quite the reverse.

Also Richard Berkinsale had tragically passed away by the time came to make the movie. The fourth and final series had been without him due to contractual obligations elsewhere and it left the final run of episodes wanting (though two or three shows still managed to be perfect).

Yet despite this Rising Damp the movie was by far and away the finest film adaptation of all time. While not capturing the sheer brilliance of the series, there were plenty of hysterical moments littered throughout the film.

First off the three remaining performers are in perfect form. Infact the film was worth making simply as a reason for Lennerd Rossiter to be given an Oscar. Something he was inexplicably denied! His total mastery of the screen as Rigsby is breathtaking.

The script is mostly TV episodes mashed together into an episodic structure. Considering the enormous success of these scripts, it would seem a perfectly good idea. However, anyone familiar with the series will notice how must funnier it was on TV and will be wanting to see something new. Eric Chappell's scripts does contain some new material and it is these moments that distinguish the film as superior to other adaptations. The Rugby scene is a particularly brilliant example.

10/10

This is really just a rehash of jokes and scenes from the series. Anyway, it's still Rising Damp and it's worth a watch.