Getting Sam Home

Getting Sam Home is a brilliant feature length outing for the lovable rogues Compo, Clegg and Foggy. The script is touching as well as humorous, not forgetting the wonderful dialogues between the terrible trio. A must for everyone, surely!

Compo, Clegg and Foggy agree to help their convalescing friend Sam escape the clutches of his domineering wife, to spend a night with his buxom girlfriend Lily Bless her. Sam goes out in style.

I'm sure it's the way Arkwright always dreamed of going out, in the arms of Nurse Gladys Emanuel, Sam does get that wish. I love that she's actually called Lily Bless her.

It's a hilarious episode, one of the show's most memorable and funniest, it's wonderful, a fine example from the show's golden era. It's as cosy as pyjamas, a fire and a hot chocolate on a frosty night.

It has a film like feel to it, it's very nicely filmed and looks great. Lots of the best cast members are here.

There are some hilarious moments, made all the better by the lack of canned laughter. I like that despite it being a a a Christmas special, it isn't festive. The best moment of all, Foggy and the shed, it's laugh out loud funny.

I'm watching the 2023 HD release, and fair play, as with One foot in The Algarve, or looks tremendous, it could have been made yesterday. I don't imagine it looked this sharp in 1983.

10/10.

Looking back now, this was the golden age of The Last of the Summer Wine. Very much up to Foggy's last episode when he departs for the first time.

Getting Sam Home was a feature length Christmas episode. It was entirely shot on film, there was no laughter track and Alan J W Bell very much shot it like a cinema film.

In 2023 the film print was upgraded for a high definition release. The episode looked better than it did back in 1983 with the grainy 16mm film look gone.

Roy Clarke adapted his novel for the screen. The characters give their thoughts on screen. The language here is a bit salty, we have not had that since the 1970s. There is also a lot of glimpses of thighs, yearnings of older men who still want to feel the female flesh.

Sam is ill in hospital. Peter Russell brilliantly plays him because he looks like he is at death's door. Sam has had slim pickens from his wife who has kept him in the shed. Sam got his fun from Lily Bless Her (Lynda Baron) twice a week.

When Sam arrives home, he persuades Foggy, Clegg and Compo to take him round to Lilly Bless Her for one more frolic. Trouble is he dies in Lily's bed with a big smile on his face.

Our trio have to take Sam's dead body back to his house and they need to borrow Sid's chip van to do it.

When Sam's widow puts him to rest in the shed, Lilly persuades the trio to being him back to her house instead.

When this was first shown, I must have watched this umpteenth times on video. I remember the whole family laughing heartily.

Getting Sam Home was the best Christmas special of the show. It is so consistently funny with some great slapstick scenes, especially with Sam's creepy smile as his corpse gets moved about. Roy Clarke writes it so well, giving the characters some poignant or wistful lines.

Actor John Comer who played Sid had died by the time this was broadcast. He was so ill, his voice had to be dubbed by another actor.

Some of the regulars have little to do in this episode such as Nora and Wally Batty. Ivy gets her moment at the end when she saves the day for everyone.

There is a tender moment when Sam's widow stops to offer Lily a lift home after the funeral. An acknowledgement from her that Lily did so much to keep Sam happy through the years.

I loved Last of the summer Wine until Compo died. But for me this was not a goog idea and not a subject to try to make into Christmas Fun. I even think that it is embarrassing.