The Bed Sitting Room

Richard Lester's directorial career went into nose-dive (at least for a while) after making this film, which was a pity. It's a post-apocalyptic black comedy like no other. Typically British and typically Milligan-ish, with a stunning visual sense.

What I enjoy most about this film is its uncompromising weirdness. It's incredibly inventive, if not particularly funny, and also quite depressing - but it has to be, dealing with the aftermath of nuclear war.

There are some excellent performances from a cast which seems to contain most of the outstanding British comedy talent of the last thirty years (Marty Feldman is particularly fine) and some pointed satire about the British "stiff upper lip", but it's the surreal visuals which stand out, including the remains of a motorway with hundreds of cars half-buried in mud, and an escalator emerging into a landscape almost entirely composed of broken crockery.

A flawed masterpiece.

For some strange reason, I recorded this movie one afternoon when it aired and my brother still has it on tape. Hilarious. Ralph Richardson, MIcheal HOrdern, Dudley Moore and Peter cooke were incredibly funny, but Mona Washburne as Mother had us laughing mostly, such as when nurse marty Feldman informed her she had died while she was still very much alive. "Well, you can't argue with it. There it is in black and white." and especially when she was throwing the dishes and was called a 'slut'. "Get out of here, ya slut." too funny! Rita Tushingham gets a bit irritating as the youthful voice of reason, possibly what hurts this movie most, but Peter Cooke's dialogue is priceless. Absolutely priceless. Then of course, we have to pay homage to our Royal Family. Or as close as we can get. Mrs. Ethel Stronk, was it?

A very strange film, this one, a surreal post-apocalypse comedy with some broad satire aimed at British politics and culture. It's quite unmissable on account of the incredible cast of famous faces and worth seeing just for them doing their bit, but the rest is more of a sketch show than anything else. It's moderately funny, on par with a typical MONTY PYTHON episode of the era.

After the grim realism of Peter Watkins' 'The War Game' this film marked the sixties' headlong retreat into total fantasy in which the Central Line still functions and radiation causes mutation into a bed-sitting room rather than boring old radiation sickness.

An amazing cast - including two Goons - make complete fools of themselves in the film in which Dick Lester blew once and for all blew all the professional capital he'd made directing the Beatles.

Ken Thorne's music like the rest of the film is likeable but far too emphatic.

One of the two outstanding black, apocalyptic science fiction comedies -- DR. STRANGELOVE is the other. This one's got it's flaws, but it has more than its share of virtues, too, especially in the area of creativity.