Love Thy Neighbour

This is a great comedy, highlighting what it was like to live next door to racist bigot. But also shows that both main characters are actually as bad as each other. Based on the hit ITV comedy, this is very politically incorrect. And its all the better for it, comedy after all is to entertain. The movies only real drawback is there isnt much of a plot. However the cast are as great as usual. Jack Smethurst and Rudolph Walker make one hell of a team, playing off each other in a oneupmanship kind of way.It's been many years since i saw this movie and last week was finally able to buy it on dvd. The fact that the movie still contains genuine laugh out loud moments, means that i can recommend this movie, just like i would of back in the 1970's.

The name Hammer will always be synonymous with horror, however the studio also very successfully produced comedies and Love Thy Neighbour is one of the best known. Based on the TV series about a black and a white couple living next door to each other in early 1970's London, constantly bickering but when they enter a "Love Thy Neighbour" competition they need to get along. The language here is incredibly racist, thankfully now seen as unacceptable in modern TV/movie making. HOWEVER , when watching LTN it must be realised that back in the 1970's society was far less politically correct. This is a comedy, dated yes but also well made and very, very funny.

It is hard to believe that this passed for mainstream entertainment 50 years ago as this big screen version of the popular long running ITV series contains enough racial slurs, offensive language, bigoted views and inappropriate behaviour to send millennials and the woke brigade into a complete meltdown. By today's standards it is a very problematic situation comedy about two warring neighbours constantly trading insults about their colour, creed and general differences in a game of unpolitically correct one-upmanship which was watched and adored by millions who thought nothing of it at the time.

While the comedy is now out dated and a product of the 1970's it's not quite as offensive as at first it may seem. Sure there are cheap gags, low brow humour and racial stereotypes in abundance but the black characters always give as good as they get from their white counterparts and the humour is spirited rather than oppressive. The white protagonist Eddie Booth often comes off worse as his racial name calling, tyrannical outbursts and small minded attitude is often to his own detriment.

In real life Jack Smethurst and Rudolph Walker were friends but they do what the script asks of them in portraying relentlessly bickering neighbours, often put in their place by their respective wives Kate Williams and Nina-Baden Semper, to make them see the error of their ways. There was never any malice or racial hatred intended in Vince Powell's scripts (who was also responsible for the sitcom Mind Your Language 1977) but it did hold up a mirror to a British society coming to terms with the immigration policy of successive Governments at that time with the integration of ethnic groups moving into working class areas causing some societal and cultural conflict.

I grew up watching the TV series so the comedy here is not as jarring for me and I love it when comedy shows get the big screen treatment, however plot wise this doesn't stray too far from the TV series like some movie versions do, although there are more scenes shown at their factory workplace, but all the elements that made the TV show a success are present here.

Flush from the success of three On the Buses movies Roy Skeggs, the producer of Hammer Films, successfully adapts another British TV sitcom on a low budget with a no frills workmanlike production as Hammer, the company typically known for horror and science fiction, continued to diversify into comedy to compete with the likes of the Carry On series and Confessions films with similar bawdiness and saucy postcard humour, most of which featured well known British comedy actors. Here we have the likes of Patricia Hayes, Arthur English, Bill Pertwee, Melvyn Hayes and Bill Fraser making guest appearances.

The humour in Love Thy Neighbour is certainly not for everyone and anyone under the age of 40 should proceed with caution.

Terrible dated film Grreat supporting roles by Tommy Godfrey, Keith Marsh & Patricia Hayes. Very politically incorrect now - & I suspect then. Not worth a watch

Love Thy Neighbour is the film based on the British TV sitcom of the same name. The film came out in 1973 and is about two couples, one black, one white who are neighbours on the same street in London and is about both the mens attempts at one-upmanship based on their mutual dislike of each others races. Its a piece of cinematic history from a decade before pc and its not a racist film per see as the biggest bigot is the white man and usually comes off worst in both this film and the TV series it is based on. I doubt very much that today's younger audiences will fund it acceptable, let alone funny due to its subject matter and script but for those of a certain age it can be very funny in a very British early 70s way and well worth a watch as both a comedy and as a study of how Britain used to be 50 years ago.