Spanish Fly

While all too readily replacing witty banter with fulsomely fleshly frolics, the boorishly bawdy 'Spanish Fly' (1976) occasionally proved itself to be a rather 'comely', far from 'slack-stick' farce of generously wine-soaked, ceaselessly bottom-goosing, lingerie-languishing absurdity! The pleasantly ample-sounding, entirely shapely score by the mercurial music-maker Ron Goodwin being an especially slinky highlight of an otherwise altogether half-baked, Menorca-set, low-browed lark, where, sadly, the usually triumphant titter-titans Terry-Thomas & Leslie Phillips were wholly unable to revivify the rather flaccid screenplay, perhaps their signature shtick was entirely lost in translation! When all is said and done, it might have been better for ALL concerned if writer Robert Ryerson had experienced such a catastrophic lack of lead in his pencil, that instead of 'writing' the frequently flightless 'Spanish Fly' he went on an imagination-restoring Mediterranean holiday instead! Even sans sting, this salaciously silly, terminally tepid tale of trouser-dropping tedium was plentifully endowed with a deliciously jaunty theme song 'Fly Me', a truly exquisite melody performed quite beautifully by saucy songbird Geraldine.

Leslie Philips and Terry-Thomas star in this roughly made dirty film made in Menorca, an island off the coast of Spain. Phillips is a photographer and Thomas a con-man who wants to offload a large consignment of dodgy local wine. He hits upon the scheme of adulterating with substances to make it more palatable. In an early scene, the background repeats and they don't have any actual wine glasses. The minor actors and the extras seem to enjoy themselves a lot. Cinema goers at the time weren't so happy.

I was hoping that with Leslie Phillips and Terry Thomas in the cast that this would be reasonably funny.However this film gets sillier and sillier as goes on.Sad that Terry Thomas has to end his days playing in this sort of film.This also reflects the sorry state of the British film industry in the seventies.

The Summer of 76, finest British retro film comics choose to play it corny but sexy ! U. K. Style.

If you're of a certain age you'll still love it ! It's fun and like a naughty sea side card !

Never again, what a shame !

The plot and the setting rather resembles David Cronenberg's The Parasite Murders' (1974), but I would guess only by coincidence. Or at least I hope so!

Shot in Menorca, with an onscreen credit for the Janet Reger underwear, those stars would have promised well fifteen years earlier. But in the seventies? Forget it...!