Three for All

I watched this film recently - oh what a disaster! What the point of this is I have no idea. The first part of the film concentrates on the the band Billy Beethoven where as the second part concentrates on their girlfriends who are not allowed to travel to Spain with them.

The start of the film has two songs, one played by Billy Beethoven themselves who have Graham Bonnet on vocals and lead guitar (later the singer with Rainbow, MSG and Alcatrazz) shortly followed by the 1970s 50s tribute band Showaddywaddy. A painfully slow start leads to the band returning to inform their girlfriends that they cannot come with them on the Spanish tour. Quite obviously Graham Bonnet was not deemed good enough to have a speaking part in this film as he says nothing for the whole duration of the film! Bonnet looks nothing like he did in Rainbow in this film!

The inclusion of the final 30 second sequence which features the girls silently arguing with a dustman (a non-speaking role from Edward Woodward, the only part of the film to feature him) is a total mystery. This has nothing to do with rest of the poor story then the credits role!

The only good thing about this film was Arthur Mullard and his wife! If you haven't seen it, don't worry, you have not missed much!

Although he's not in it, players of the English branch of "the six degrees of Kevin Bacon" must love this film, given the sheer number of cast members who are more famous for other things being in this together. Where else will you find links between Edward Woodward and Arthur Mullard?; Diana Dors and Richard Beckinsale?; John le Mesurier and Ian Lavender? (oh, wait a minute...); and many other pairings of your choosing. It's actually harder to find members of the core cast who *didn't* go on to some sort of fame than did.

As for the film itself, it's pretty standard mid-70s farcical nonsense that's not as funny as perhaps it might be, although the music isn't too bad. The sound design could do with some work though, given the sheer amount of screaming that accompanies the crowd and concert scenes.

Not great, but good for historical completists...

A rock/pop band ('Billy Beethoven)'s manager wins a holiday to a Spanish resort. Utter, ugly, tedium ensues. Was it deliberate that the three girlfriends's T-shirts had 'Bethoven' on them? Possibly to show that they while adorable, they were irredeemably thick, as all women were thought to be in 1975.

What's so bad about 'TFA' is the gap between what you might expect from a cast full of contemporary English thesps and the result. Richard Beckinsale through to John Le Mesurier via Diana Dors, George Baker and Robert Lindsay, are given a script written one lunchtime in a pub by Tudor Gates, who stood as Liberal candidate for Bethnal Green, coming third, and was a shop steward for Bectu, the film electricians' union. He shouldn't have given up the day job.

Everything is horrible. The locations, the clothes, the music, the jokes, the Costa Del Sol, the cars, the BA Trident pumping out fumes, the direction, the lighting, the sound. The cast probably each set their careers back 10 years just by appearing in it.

If you're ever tempted to write,"'This is the worst film I've ever seen", give 'TFA' a thought. It's the worst film anybody could ever see. It actually smells bad.

Three For All's director, Martin Campbell, has now achieved worldwide recognition because in the last decade and a half, he has directed a couple of Bond films (Goldeneye and Casino Royale), and the Mask and Legend of Zorro movies.

However, I have no doubt AT ALL, that when interviewed for those directing jobs, he kept completely silent about his involvement in this largely forgotten 70's time capsule. By 1975, The British film industry, after years of high morals, had fully accepted, and fully embraced, the relaxing of the censorship laws to allow full frontal nudity in motion pictures, and for a few years that is is pretty much all we churned out, which is what makes Three For All, a welcome alternative to the usual British comedy of the time, as the film is quite family oriented albeit with a smidge of innuendo scattered here and there, but happily, on this occasion, there is not so much as one naked breast to be seen.

The film was designed as a blatant cash in on the new cut-price foreign holiday craze that had swept Britain in the previous couple of years just as 'Carry on Abroad' had done a few years earlier, With the holiday costs on the continent now within most peoples budget, most British holiday makers were discarding boring Blackpool, or dreary Devon, for places such as Spain & Portugal which before, had been completely intangible to all but those affluent enough to afford it.

I'm sure that Three For All, would have been lost forever in some dusty British movie fault by now, had it not been for the fact that it not only featured a then all-star cameo guest list, but of the lesser known young actors involved, most of them were to become famous, such as The late Richard Beckinsale, (Porridge/Rising Damp), Robert Lindsay, (Citizen Smith/My Family), Paul Nicholas (Just Good Friends), and accomplished singer Graham Bonnet, who would very soon go on to be lead vocalist with top Hard Rock bands like Rainbow and MSG.

The plot follows a pop band, who despite being booked to play a school hall in support of 'Showaddywaddy', (A Major act in their day), they still feel that they are down on their luck. As Manager, Beckinsale enters the band into a competition and wins the backing of a shifty promoter called Eddie Boyes (George Baker, best known today as Wexford in the Ruth Rendall mysteries), who books the band for a series of profile raising gigs in the form of a full Spanish tour. Unable to go with them, and upset that their fellas are going away for a few months, their girlfriends decide to follow them, and as a result, they manage to put the reputation of British Tourists abroad, back by about 100 years.

The cast, is just a mammoth list of the big names of the time, such as Adrienne Posta, David Kossoff, Liz Fraser, John Le Mesurier, Hattie Jacques, Simon Williams, Diana Dors, Edward Woodward, Dandy Nichols, Roy Kinnear, Ian Lavender and Arthur Mullard and it's great to see all these people hamming it up and having a good laugh into the bargain, despite some of them being very serious thesps indeed.

I really love the typical 1970's pop soundtrack to this movie, and after 20 years of trying, I STILL haven't found a copy. However, the real star of the movie, is not the actors or actresses involved, neither is it the music, or the fashions. The real star, is actually the 1970's as a decade. The 1970's were a decade that in someways only seem like yesterday and in others seem like a whole lifetime ago Admittedly, there were a lot of things about the 1970's that we all should feel ashamed about, but unless your name is Martin Campbell, then this film certainly isn't one of them.

Enjoy!

I last saw this film about 15 years ago so I'm a bit fuzzy on detail, but basically the plot is as follows: A rock band are going on tour to the Costa del Sol. Their girlfriends are excited about the trip, then disappointed to find they are not invited. After the boys have left, they decide to follow on and surprise the boys out there. Things don't quite go to plan and the girls have a number of mishaps along the way in their pursuit of their boyfriends. I was 16-ish when I saw this and loved it - its funny, silly, tacky and there is lots of sun, sea, sangria plus fantastic 70's teen fashion. The only thing I can't guarantee is that my description in any way matches the reality of the film as its been so long since I saw it that I might have dreamt the whole thing. I hope not.