Up Pompeii

Frankie Howerd is a genius. This wonderful film is an unrealistic story of what might have happened in AD 79. A slave, Lurcio, accidentally picks up a scroll naming conspirators, and much British fun follows. This film has little storyline, and is not particularly funny, but it is worth watching for the theme song and Lance Percival's Roman General.

This film is rubbish! I know - I've seen it 23 times! Perhaps you need to be British even to understand it. Just reading the names of the characters makes me smile.

The film has its origin in a British TV Series and was certainly much better in 30 minute chunks but, at least when they made the film, they took the effort to come up with a plot, puerile though it is. The cast is pretty well unchanged from the TV Series too.

Frankie Howerd (Lurcio) based his whole theatrical career on dodgy double intendres and this film is full of them. His habit of making asides directly to the audience via the camera is hilarious. In fact, most of the comedy lies in those two attributes. The visual side of the film, the physical comedy, is more or less one long chase scene with breaks and is not really that funny.

There are some very funny scenes though. The orgy and its aftermath and the wrestling match stand out. The ending is very clever too.

Worth a watch and far better than the two sequels it spawned, 'Up The Chastity Belt' and 'Up The Front'.

Howard has the knack of knowing when to give the audience the eye, with a just perfect leer. This film is one that shows you that it is possible to break the 4th wall to include the audience in the scene. A movie any teenage boy would love and should be viewed by all the staff at "MAXIM". When the film was first shown on TV here in North America it was a little scandalous. The English were not as prudish and had more fun that way.

This film has the best "hangover" scene I have ever seen. The morning after the orgy is a must.

Depending on whether you like 70's britcom, you will either love this or hate it. For me it epitomizes a simpler era - one where sexist humor was acceptable and not everything had to be so PC. The thing it is most like is a series from the same era - the name escapes me but it had a black and white couple living next to each other with the men making snide racist comments across the garden fence, but respecting each other underneath, while the wives sat in the kitchen bitching about men over a cup of tea.

Frankie Howerd is, well, Frankie Howerd. He brings the audience right into the film acting as both lead actor and narrator. It is full of his classic one line wit which has never been emulated by anyone (some may say this is good thing, but not me; Nay, Nay and thrice Nay!). The sets were clearly done on a budget, and if you like whiz-bang special effects then forget it. This was clearly a Frankie Production.

So (in the words of jib-jab) if you are a left wing weenie, forget this film, but if you are a stupid dumb ass (like me), take a look.