George and Mildred

After seeing other reviews on here, I viewed this film with some trepidation, & with my expectations not too high..

It starts off brightly enough - we get introduced to the familiar characters in the first few minutes (albeit living in a different road to the one used in the TV show, but similar enough).

Once the plot is established about the Ropers celebrating their anniversary at a swanky hotel, things unfortunately start to go downhill. As so often with previous British 70s sitcom spin-offs, the humour doesn't always work when the characters are put into a completely new setting - & it's the same here.

The usual humour about George's laziness, Mr Fourmile's snobbishness & Mildred's upwardly mobile aspirations being dashed are jettisoned for an unwise 'mistaken-identity' plot (which ironically could very well have been written for someone else entirely).

The whole film lurches into being a slightly bawdy sex-comedy - much more like something from the early 70s than the 80s, & George & Mildred don't really get to play to their strengths.

Despite a good supporting cast including Stratford Johns, Kenneth Cope, Harry Fowler (& an early appearance from Vicky Michelle), the whole film becomes rather exhausting about halfway through as the whole sorry spectacle starts to fall a bit flat.

Not to say that there are some laughs along the way - but nothing as good as what we've seen in the G & M sitcom.

It's sad too that this became Yootha Joyce's final work - being released after her death, & thus putting an end to this warmly-remembered series, leaving this film as her epitaph.

It's certainly worth watching if you're a G&M fan, & an interesting period piece - & good of course to see these characters one last time. Just don't expect to be blown away... we'll leave that to the 'hitman'!

This, the last and probably least, of all big screen versions of situation comedies is made even more unfortunate by being released after the untimely death of Youtha Joyce. It is surely not a way she would have wanted to have been remembered. This follows all the established clichés of other sitcom adaptations: going on holiday, mistaken identity, and the involvement of incompetent organised crime (the main villain is occasionally seen bald and sometimes bewigged, no doubt a homage to Lex Luthor in the contemporaneous Superman film). A whole plethora of bit-part British actors of the period gives a slight pleasure since the viewers can entertain themselves with the "What's his name? I recognise the face. Wasn't he in-?" game. Otherwise this is a painful experience. The script is dreadful even by spin off standards. Everything here is lazy and more importantly, unfunny. Typical scene: A hit-man runs up a flight of stairs to kill George and out of breath, he talks to Mildred about his children, then takes the lift down only to run up again, spots George (by chance) but then not kill him. Its a drawn out and embarrassingly bad sequence and not remotely amusing. In the end, the villains chase George and Mildred in their car. We are told repeatedly they are going down a dead end. However the road (unlike the script) is not a dead end. After the villains have a cheaply shot and unfunny crash, the Ropers end up on an airfield which seems to be created merely so George can elicit the hilarious line "He's flying a bit low."

George & Mildred - The Movie lacks the talents of its TV writer John Mortimer who brings the close quarter cut and thrust of George's class war with the Fourmiles alive.

The plot is cut from standard spin-off cloth - hit-man/mistaken identity - and has as little tension as there are laughs. The producers should have taken a leaf from Rising Damp, (also 1980)which was also bought to the big screen after the TV series demise, and kept much of the story in familiar setting.

Yootha Joyce died in 1980 but she should not be remembered for this creaking piece of work encumbered as she was by her illness. Mildred lacks the sharpness of her TV incarnation; cutting asides and withering looks largely directed at Georges lack of libido. George's sputtering incredulity also gets lost in the more expansive sets. This is not to say that they were much to shout about. The budget for this movies looks pathetically small; a restaurant they go to is clearly a new semi-starched house with some Christmas lights adorning the front door.

For fans of 70's British comedy or those who just want to revisit an old TV companion from their youth this film can add nothing to the experience and they should just stick to the first four TV series out now on DVD.

I've always found this film odd to watch as Yootha Joyce passed on before it's release and her last on screen moment being a wink to the camera before switching off the light heading upstairs (another series on TV was planned before her untimely death).

Sadly the plot leaves the usual TV storylines (and for the most part excludes their neighbours the Fourmiles) for a mistaken identity plot (where George is mistaken for a hitman!).

The guest cast can't help the film from being on of the worst sit-com spin-off films as well as being one of the final (with Rising Damp) damp squibs of the genre (Future feature length adaptations such as Last Of The Summer Wine and Only Fools and Horses would be TV specials).

Sadly the end of an era in so many ways.

As with a lot of TV-to-film sitcoms, this failed miserably to transfer to the big screen. The mainly studio settings of the TV version forced some sort of discipline which is sadly lacking here. Seems quite appropriate that this was made by Hammer Films. A classic of the horror genre!