The Bargee

A great period piece featuring a whose who of Mid sixties tv comedy. Harry H Corbett is Hamel a lovely romeo who sails the canals with a girl at every lock gate.

He wouldn't and doesn't want to change this way of life until the inevitable intervenes.

Honourable mentions to Ronnie Barker, Julie Foster and Hugh Griffiths.

It depicts a way of life and attitudes that have long since gone and is enjoyable because of this.

The film is unique in that it attempts to portray working life on the English canals as it really was in the 1960s, without the affected prettification of most accounts.

The bargees are workmen, Hemel (Corbett) the ladies man trapped by a pretty girl, and propelled to the altar on the end of a shotgun, and Ronnie (Barker) his none too bright right hand man.

The film is set immediately before the end of the way of life that it portrays, as commercial narrowboat carrying came to an end on Britains waterways. At the time of its release, this was a very recent memory, the trade having been finally killed off by the severe winter of 1963.

The boats seen in the film are the genuine article, used in a film about the end of the trade, mere months after it ended. Within a very short time after the film, most of the craft had been destroyed, leaving only a few in preservation.

Yes, it is nostalgic. Yes, it is slow, but canal boats can only cruise at 4 m.p.h. so perhaps it matches the storyline. Anyway, who says film has to be frenetic all the time? Harry H. Corbett is superb. It's a shame he never received more recognition for his talents during his life time. The film also was an early chance for Ronnie Barker to shine as Hemel's dim witted cousin. But my favourite supporting players are Eric Sykes' canal enthusiast energetically freewheeling through his scenes. He turns what are little more than vignettes into perfect sketches. Jo Rowbottom appears as one of Hemel's squeezes. Her brief appearance is actually quite touching- Hemel treats her badly, and she knows it.

If nothing else, Give it a try if you are a film buff! It's a 'spot the British character actor' film. Perfect rainy afternoon fare, except it has only been shown once on television in the last ten years.

This is very much a star vehicle for Harry H. Corbett, fresh from the success of 'Steptoe And Son'. Indeed, the 'Steptoe' associations do not end there, as the presence of Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Duncan Wood suggest.

Like 'Steptoe', this movie is based around a traditional but dying industry (by the end of the film it has only 18 months), that of commercial narrow boat trading. The difference is that in 'Steptoe' the totting is very much a grim existence, but here it is a pretty much idyllic life and you can readily understand Hemel Pike's reluctance to give it up. The Technicolor helps provide a dream-like tone.

Galton and Simpson's script is strong, mixing comedy and drama as Corbett's 'Casanova of the canals' succumbs to the charms of the winsome daughter of the fiery Hugh Griffith. There is an equally strong cast to match, notably Eric Sykes as an incompetent amateur mariner and Miriam Karlin as a vengeful woman who discovers that she is not the only woman in Corbett's life. In my eyes Ronnie Barker steals every scene he is in.

This is possibly Corbett's best screen outing as star and is far better than its general reputation suggests. I first saw it around ten years ago and it failed to make an impression, re-watching it today, I fell in love with it.

Some rather odd reviews on here, though any new viewers will get the general gist of the film from them.

Lothario bargee, girl in every 'port' (or at least all the calling points between London & Brum on the canals). That's Corbett, and his illiterate cousin Ronnie Barker, who'd go on to be one of the top-3 comedy actors here, due to Open All Hours, Porridge, and the 2 Ronnies, and that's just the main ones!

To correct a few, Corbett WAS already Steptoe by the time this film happened, and I expect the director and backers wanted a script that played to those mannerisms, using Galton & Simpson (Steptoe creators -- as well as writing lots of other comedy material) was a good way to ensure it.

Prismark writes an unusually poor review, this was NOT like a "bad Carry on film", that series was aimed at an entirely different crowd (or did I miss Sid James & Babs Windsor somewhere?!).

Oh, and 'dimplet' (more like DIM-plet??) who is presumably American slagged off the film, but gave it 9 out of 10?!

The film is just a gentle comedy, a distraction, playing to the strengths of a mass of British character and comedy actors. Brian Wilde and Ronnie Barker would go on to great success in Porridge, Miriam Karlin had been a comedy icon in 'Rag Trade'. Julia Foster may have got selected for the massive hit film Alfie as a result of her performance in this! Etc Etc.

It adds in a poignant nod to the imminent demise of the canals as working transport for heavy loads, a respected trade in the UK for a couple of hundred years, and carrying with it the rise of the industrial age in the Victorian years.