Consuming Passions

From the very beginning when some poor worker falls into the churning funnel of a vat of chocolate, this delightful, brilliant comedy is ready to have you falling out of your chair. Once you accept to suspend disbelief, you can't help but enjoy the wonderful wacky characters that inhabit this film.

Vanessa Redgrave gives a brilliant and memorable performance as the passion filled widow who takes the meek protagonist in hand and knocks his socks off. She is absolutely hilarious.

I can't believe the poor average rating that this film has garnered so far, and I can only guess that the people who rated this film lack the capacity to understand black humor.

Any fans of Monty Python, Mr. Bean, or Tracy Ullman will probably "get" the humor of this quiet, under-appreciated masterpiece.

This is about very stupid people; also, it is about very greedy people. All of them come together in Old Chum's Chocolate factory which, of late, has added a wee extra ingredient to their new line of super-awful candies. The entire cast is dynamite, but the overall humor is black, to blacker. This isn't a movie for the Chuckle And Sideslap crowd, but for the much more stout-hearted comedy buff.

Dark chocolate and "dark comedy" mix well in this outrageous British comedy. Innocent first day employee accidentally dunks three workers into a mixing vat of chocolate, and thus begins his lesson on how big business operates. The bosses are only interested in profits, at the expense of all else. When our meek hero goes to inform the "loved ones' of the terrible accident, all hell breaks loose in the "black comedy" department. The casting and locations are perfect, and despite the derivative storyline the film seems fresh. Highly recommended, and for fans of British dark comedies such as "Car Trouble.", this movie will not disappoint. The DVD is rather pricy, but definitely worth it. MERK

I tell friends this is the funniest film about cannibalism I've ever seen! I've put in on wish lists, tried Netflix, everything, and I can't find it on DVD.

Fortuntely, I do have a pretty good VHS I can watch whenever I like.

It was my first exposure to Sammi Davis, who later turned up in Quentin Tarantino's "Four Rooms" in her voluptuous best.

The Monty Python influence is obvious. After all Michael Palin and Terry Jones put it together. Terry Gilliam did "Brazil" and here's Jonathan Price. He and Michael Palin starred in Brazil. Another very dark and humorous film.

Finally, there's the totally wonderful Vanessa Redgrave.

Enjoy it if you can find it.

My review was written in March 1988 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

"Consuming Passions" is a thoroughly unfunny misfire, equating poor taste with black humor. British-made effort from Samuel Goldwyn Co. (of which the late Goldwyn Senior would clearly disapprove) integrates cornball elements from such warhorses as "Sweeney Todd" into a very flat satire that is barely suitable for midnight screenings.

Pic originally was developed with the active participation of several Monty Python members, with Goldcrest (since departed from the project) involved as well unr the working title "The Chocolate Factory". Final result is credited as based on a (little-known) play "Secrets" by Pythonites Michael Palin and Terry Jones, but Paul D. Zimmeman ("The King of Comedy") and Andrew Davies' script is witless and vulgar.

Nominal plot, a sketch stretched to feature length, has naive management trainee Tyler Butterworth arriving at Freddie Jones' chocolate factory and accidentally pushing three workmen into a vat. Unable to stop the assembly line, Butterworth to his horror discovers the men have been processed into the first batch of Passionelles chocolates, a brainchild of new company manager Jonathan Pryce.

Under Giles Foster's mechanical direction, every plot twist is telegraphed at least a reel ahead: Jones and Butterworth's unsuccessful, frenzied attempt to retrieve the tainted chocolates; test results which prove that only the cannibal-contents Passionelles meet with consumer approval; lengthy segue to Butterworth's "Burke and Hare" assignments to fetch corpses to keep the popular 6% human content Passionelles in production, etc.

Only surprise here is top-billed Vanessa Redgrave, taking an ill-advised stab at comedy by playing, with Melina Mercouri-esque voice, a Maltese woman whose insatiable sexual appetite gets Butterworth in trouble. Redgrave's extraneous cameo, at first amusing, is padded via endless repetition and becomes embarrassing. Toilet humor here makes the "Carry On" films seem a paragon of good taste by comparison, and at least they were amusing.

Pryce gets a few cheap laughs from his garish clothing, but his facial tics and affected vocal pattern (performing each sentence with "Yeah!") are tiresome. Jones hams to no effect and Prunella Scales, erstwhile perfect comedy foil for John Cleese in his "Fawlty Towers" tv serie, has little to do as a secretary wearing funny-looking miniskirts. Sammi Davis, as Butterworth's romantic interest and the closest to a normal character, is very appealing with a Liverpudlian accent.

Helping to sink the dubious enterprise is casting of Butterworth in the lead role -he simply isn't funny in a part that would require an established talent on the level of Michael Palin to carry the picture. Tech credits are solid down the line, offering needed visual distraction.

A tasteless sight gag involving an AIDS-prevention warning got the only belly laugh at the screening.