Don't Just Lie There, Say Something!

Leslie Phillips starred in a few bedroom farces in the early to mid-1970s. These were DOCTOR IN TROUBLE, NOT NOW DARLING, Spanish FLY, NOT NOW COMRADE and this film. DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING is undoubtedly one of the best of these films.

The plot is as follows - a government minister intends to tighten up the laws on censorship, leading to a group of hippies kidnapping his underdog. From this simple premise the film descends into the usual farce with clothes coming off, mistaken identities, characters making up stories as they try to explain away their various antics and so on.

The first thing to note is that the film doesn't look like a filmed stage play in the same way as NOT NOW DARLING did. It makes use of more than one location and some outdoor scenes too (although not too many).

Leslie Phillips is on top form in this film and his caddish on screen persona is ideally suited to the part he plays. Likewise, Brian Rix is probably at his best in this film. I remember recently seeing the film version of another Rix farce, DRY ROT, and noting that it was a far less energetic production than this one. Rix has a ball of a time getting into all manner of mishaps, as well as trying to fool a police inspector with a phony Australian accent. It's all great to see and the film moves along at a very fast pace like NOT NOW DARLING did.

Joanna Lumley has always been better in serious works rather than comedy. That's my opinion anyway. I'll always think of her as being at her best as Sapphire in the SAPPHIRE AND STEEL series. But she is good as Miss Parkyn, Phillips' secretary and shares many great scenes with Phillips.

Derek Royle has fun playing an MP of the opposition party, hoping to find evidence of Phillips' sexual exploits in order to try embarrassing (and possibly bring down) the government.

Peter Bland is excellent as Inspector Ruff, a character who reprises his role in another, lesser-known Rix farce called A BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH (sadly no film version of that one was made).

Joan Sims is somewhat wasted as Phillips' wife, but it's great to see her here nonetheless.

The rest of the cast are great too, especially Katy Manning.

As was the case with NOT NOW DARLING, the film is better than the stage version. The faster pace and the perfect casting ensure this.

Overall, DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING is one of the best British farces - a fast-paced masterpiece and one of my all-time favourite comedies. For fans of the CARRY ON films, Benny Hill, Ray Cooney farces (or Brian Rix ones of course), this is a must see.

To use the words forced, stagey, inane and desperate to describe this film would be a severe understatement. The majority of this film seems to consist of characters hiding under beds or in closets, running around in their underwear or less or putting on "funny" accents to get themselves out of compromising positions (and I use the term loosely).

The characters in this film are incredibly dumb but there's a method behind this. They have to be dumb otherwise if they acted like sensible human beings all the plot strands would be tied up in about 20 minutes.

This is the sort of film they don't make anymore and with good reason.

This is bad even for a Brian Rix farce. I bought a boxed set of Leslie Phillips DVDs for £10 in a sale and this one was in it along with 'The VIP' and 'Doctor in Trouble' (both with James Robertson Justice). I can't think why. Phillips did so many much better films and I can't see why anyone thought it worth the effort to transfer this one onto disc. The cast contains some of the great stalwarts of the British film industry such as Joan Sims, Derek Griffiths, Joanna Lumley, Peter Cellier and the Goodies' favourite newsreader Corbet Woodall but even they can't bring it up to standard. Even the worst Carry Ons were ten times better than this garbage. An absolute stinker.

This type of humour had made people laugh for centuries. It's not clever, it doesn't make you think, it's not even got the sophistication of a Carry On film! It's the most basic, simple and innocent type of humour - it's just funny.

Brian Rix had been doing this sort of thing for years so his act was honed to perfection. Likewise Leslie Phillips had played this character so much, it had become his life. They were both phenomenally popular in the 50s, 60s and 70s but today such 'caveman humour' is considered decidedly un-cool.

Despite my preconceptions, within five minutes I was literally laughing out loud. My other preconceptions which was shattered was how 'clean' this was. Although made during the tacky, smutty Confessions of and Adventures of films, this is remarkably nudity free and even swear word free.... it could easily have been made ten or twenty years earlier... or even been a 1930s pre-code comedy.

The highlight of this picture is the living goddess, the impossibly sexy, the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Katy Manning! Yes, that's Jo, Dr Who's companion from the early 70s. Golly, she was pretty and she's pretty funny in this too.

Although you might think this isn't your cup of tea, give it a go; if you don't laugh, just tell St Peter when you get to the Pearly Gates and he'll give your an hour and a half of your life back.

Crown minister Leslie Phillips and back-bench friend Brian Rix are co-sponsoring an anti-smut bill. This has a group of youngster upset, so they kidnap Rix on the day he is to be wed, drug him, and call the papers and police to come visit the orgy and wreck his standing. Meanwhile, Phillips is supposed to be on his way to Scotland, but has arranged for a rendez-vous -- two, as it turns out. All these collide in one large flat into which youngsters, police, fiancees, secretaries, mistresses, and senile Opposition MP Derek Royle are crammed into various doors, closets, and under beds.

I imagine Michael Pertwee's script performed better as a door-slamming stage farce than the movie it was turned into. Valiant efforts to open it up via editing cuts only serve to destroy the sharp timing such efforts need. Still, the ladies, including Joan Sims, Joanna Lumley, Myra Frances, and Nicola Rowley, are lovely, and if you have patience, the second half is better timed for this sort of nonsense, and Rix is quite good, and Phillips (whom youngsters may recall as the voice of the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter is always amusing in a fast-thinking, scoundrelly way.

The idea was sorted into a TV show, MEN OF AFFAIRS.