Till Death Us Do Part

The Seventies would see the boom of the sitcom spin off film a very mixed bag but for my generation the first examples of many series' we'd see.

Alf Garnett remains a classic TV character much misunderstood but you can find commentators who can write more eloquently then myself on that.

The film is an interesting mix of Alf in wartime and in the sixties (including the 1966 World cup final) - It's a well made lovingly shot film (the exact opposite of the 2nd film - the truly awful 'The Alf Garnett Saga).

Times have changed and thankfully so - The trailer for the film even uses the racist language Alf spewed - But this film gives an excellent view of the changing times in both eras.

Cast wise all of the main TV cast are here and are as good as ever - One problem for Alf is that Warren Mitchell was such a good actor and managed to make us like the old sod!

A time capsule and well worth seeking out (Network DVD have released the ultimate version).

Alf Garnett is one of TV's finest - and most misunderstood - comedy creations. Alf's brought to life by socialist writer Johnny Speight and tremendous comic actor Warren Mitchell. Mitchell is Jewish, yet Garnett is a blistering satire of right-wing bigotry.

The film version of Till Death Do Us Part is superior to the misguided sequel In Sickness and in Health, though slightly behind the '65 TV original. The first half of the movie lacks the ethical counterpoint of his Labour-voting ("Randy Scouse git!") son-in-law, yet still scores with Mitchell's classic study of loud-mouth stupidity.

The joke is Alf himself, not his views, and seeing him denounce Hitler's fascism then, in almost the same breath, rally against "Eye-ties" and "coloureds" is a fine parody of small-minded ignorance. This is a man who gleefully cries, "get a bit of action now" at the outbreak of the Second World War. A man who proffers "Ugly, innit?" at the birth of his own daughter. On being told his daughter's mother-in-law goes to church every Sunday, he rants, "I said I was religious - I didn't say I was a bloody religious maniac!" Often it's the way he tells 'em. Other Alf philosophies include repressing student demonstrations with a plan to "bung that lot out to work at fourteen, same as they done in the old days". "Wasn't that bad," he says about Hitler, when deciding, with hindsight, that we should have joined forces with the Third Reich, "Had his faults."

Alf's the man who has an opinion on everything, no matter how ill informed, and regularly expresses it, preferably in a crowded pub, to anyone that will listen. Alf's only flexibility in his views is in having a photograph of Winston Churchill ready to take the place of Neville Chamberlain's when he resigns.

This form of satire takes risks and can be shocking - during the film Alf criticises the calibre of the Japanese after Hiroshima and insults the Pope. "The coon's got a sense o'humour" he declares of a young girl before collapsing in a drunken heap and plastering his daughter with beer at her wedding reception. A documentary on Mitchell's life saw him recount a tale of a man who approached him in the street, praising him for "having a go at them coons." Mitchell's response was "we were actually having a go at idiots like you." That said, while an elitist amusement, the fact that this material became such a mainstream hit means that real-life bigots will ultimately see it as a vindication of their views, making it questionable entertainment.

Working a half-hour sitcom into a feature-length narrative is inevitably hit and miss, though Speight must be praised for doing something new with the format rather than just crafting a triple-length episode. Where the series saw Alf tirading against 60s counterculture, the first half of the movie is a kind of pre-story, with Alf and Else in the middle of the blitz. The film's recreation of 40s England is well realised, even if editing in stock footage of aircraft disrupts the illusion somewhat. Direction by Norman Cohen is also often cleverer than you might expect for this type of material.

At the halfway mark we get a "nearly 20 years later" caption, taking us up to the present date and the series' timeline. A three-and-a-half-minute dream sequence in the final stages may seem like filler, but it was good enough for Chaplin in The Kid, so it gets by here. Maybe the problem with the central character is that Mitchell makes him so likeable in spite of himself. Some famous names offer support in the film - Brian Blessed, Bill Maynard, Geoffrey Hughes, Anthony Booth and Frank Thornton - but, other than Booth, none of them get much of a look in, this being Mitchell's film all the way.

The Film of the Successful TV series "Till Death us do part" undoubtedly is one of the better TV to Film adaptations. Norman Cohen as mentioned has directed this superbly. (In comparison to Carry On Engalnd you can believe the war situation!) The Whole cast is present from the TV Series which is a bonus in itself. (Of which let down films such as Rising Damp - easier to not do it at all) Warren Mitchell & Dandy Nichols really do play up to expectations.

Usual errors within TV-Film adaptations is Recycled Material and/or weak plot lines/jokes. Till death us do part exceeds all these pitfalls and comes out trumps.

As Alf would say "bloody marvellous innit!" - and i would attribute that to this film!

I first saw this film, when it was originally released in 1969 at the ABC Edgware (now, a block of flats and a gym, very much in line with the film's partial theme of community break-up), but was somewhat disappointed because it didn't contain the original music nor - until three-quarters into the film, the original format - Alf, Else, their daughter Una Stubbs and Tony Booth as her husband the "scouse git". Now, 37 years on, I think differently. Although somewhat episodic, it beautifully captures a bygone era, with excellent footage of London during WW2, a good feel of the old East End, plus old-fashioned pub culture without the plastic fittings and lager and the traditional family all eating around the table. There is the quaint working class Tory ethos embodied by Alf, not quite, the not for the likes of us of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, rather the loyal, home-owning, small-minded bigotry of someone who perceives himself as a self-made man, who has not made quite as much as he thinks he deserves.

There are some lovely home-truths and vignettes within this setting: the £1,500 paid for the house (not a bad price in this day and age!), the mortgage from the Council and the scrimping and saving to pay it off. Dandy Nicholls as the "silly old moo" housewife ultimately wears the trousers and guides the household through. There is also pathos from Alf's 5 shilling contribution to the Church in the hope his two up, two down will not be demolished to make way for flats and ultimately bathos, as the family is forced to move to a high rise block in Essex, where community and the sense of community hardly exist.

No more, the chat with the neighbour while carrying out ablutions through the wall of the outside "bog", the sheets of newspaper, which, during the war-scenes, enabled Alf to wipe his posterior with Hitler's picture, long since gone. It is far closer to reality than the fluffy adverts with the dog and the loo-roll of the present day.

Hopefully, the old-fashioned racism depicted by Johnny Speight with his sharp ear for dialogue and knowledge of the area, dissipated throughout the '70's and '80's as even Alf-like characters got to admire national role models such as Trevor MacDonald and Lenny Henry.The World Cup footage, presumably from Goal, interspersed with Alf and son-in-law in the Wembley crowd, were more evocative than most of the four-yearly diatribes we get as the England team seek to emulate their predecessors, with higher expectations than the results could possibly justify.

It is very much Warren Mitchell's film, his performance stands in comparison with any of those in more critically acclaimed '60's films such as This Sporting Life or the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Norman Cohen, the director, deserves credit for this too.

All in all, a worthy and atmospheric social drama with, yes, a little comedy, which being what it is, contributes to a period piece, which has stood the test of time well.

Introducing the background to the television series, this film starts just before the War with Alf Garnett recently married and living in an attached house in the East End. Then it switches to the contemporary era, the world cup match in 1964 and the councils decision to demolish the house and move them to a high rise in Essex.

----------- I'd just like to point out a few factual errors promoted by Speight :

The housing in the east end demolished by Wilson was of very poor quality and in many cases falling down. It was poorly made in the first place and the east end was one of the most heavily bombed areas in the War. Garnett has an outside flush toilet but many houses only had a "short drop" toilet and relied on a nightcart service. When the Thames valley flooded in the early 1960s, there was a big outbreak of Tyhoid fever - this is when it was decided to demolish the area.

Speight has Garnett travelling long periods to work - in fact the container port was moved to Folkestone after the building of the Thames barrage (the bulk port had moved decades before) as the large ships could not enter so there was very little employment in the area.

While its technically true about the high rise (they were an elderly couple and the children were not on the lease but sponging), families were given semis not flats so the story is misleading.