PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly 1970

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly 1970 Loosely based on a play called The Happy Family by Maisie Mosco, screenplay by Brian Comport, direction by Freddie Francis. It was retitled to Girly when it was released in the US. It's Maisie's only writing credit. Brian has 5 other films to his credit, they appeared between between 1968 and 1972. Brian's first two films were documentaries, MNS&G was his first feature film, I haven't seen any of his other features. 

Freddie was both a cinematographer and a director in both TV and feature films. I'd recently seen The Scamp, or Strange Affection in the UK, and he was the director of photography. He was the DOP for David Lynch on The Elephant Man, Dune, and The Straight Story. He directed several films for Hammer and almost as many for Amicus. He directed episodes of The Man In The Suitcase, The Champions and The Saint. I've seen a good bit of his work.

Freddie wanted to film a film in Oakley Court, it was a location that was used in several Hammer films and plenty of other films including The Rocky Horror Picture Show. You can read about it on the Wikipedia page. He'd shot three Hammer films there but all exteriors, he wanted to use the interior for his own film.

That's Vanessa Howard as Girly, Ursula Howells as Mumsy, Pat Heywood as Nanny and Howard Trevor as Sonny. They all live in the house and play The Game. It's got it's own rules and they must be followed, breaking them gets you a one way ticket to visit the Angels. Girly and Sonny leave the house to lure young men into the place, to be their New Friend, usually the New Friend doesn't last so long.

It's a house with a pecking order, Mumsy is in charge, Nanny below, the two children are on the next rung down with New Friend below them. The latest NF is slowly figuring out The Game and he starts playing the characters off of each other. It's a dangerous ploy, they could turn on him at anytime and it's off to see the Angels for New Friend.

It's pretty goofy. I enjoyed it. You might, you can see in the link above.

The Case Of The Smiling Stiffs 1973

The Case Of The Smiling Stiffs 1973 Screenplay by Jerry Hayling and others, direction by Sean S Cunningham and Brud Talbot. The film is listed on the IMDb under the original title Case Of The Full Moon Murders, that's not the title of the copy on YouTube. I couldn't find posters or promo material with the original title and very little material for the re-title either. It's tagline is The First Sex Rated Whodunnit! It was called Sex On The Groove Tube in Canada. It's working title was Silver Cock. If you watch you'll see why.

Some of the cast and crew had just worked on Wes Craven's 1972 film The Last House On The Left which had been produced by Sean S Cunningham. Sean would co-create and direct Friday The 13th in 1980 and work on some of the sequels. He produced House and House II: The Second Story and several other horror films. The only other film he directed that I know I've seen is Deep Star Six.

 

It's a softcore parody of Dragnet with Fred J Lincoln as Joe and Ron Millkie as Frank. The pair of homicide detectives are investigating a series of monthly murders, men have been found dead, their faces frozen in a smiling grin and their members stiff with rigor. The detectives see some action in the line of duty.

Sheila Stuart is the gal doing the killings. Once a month she gets the urge to go down on a guy, problem is she's a vampire who can turn into a bat and her sucking is fatal. She flies through the open window of an unsuspecting sleeping man, turns back into a woman and puts that final smile on her victim's face.

Harry Reems plays a reporter investigating the murders. He winds up in the sack with several of the women who answer his knock. In a bit of foreshadowing one of the ladies mentions she couldn't take him everyday and she can hardly get her toes uncurled the next day. Harry will come save the day at the end of the film.

There's plenty of naked ladies and sexy times but it's all softcore. It's the first film for Jean Jennings, she'd appear in a handful of hardcore films and then leave the business. There's some jokes, some work and some don't, and plenty of slapstick. It's a pretty poorly written and directed film, partly because they ran out of money before the film was finished. It did make me laugh but it's not something I would want to buy, especially since it's free on YouTube. You might like it, you might not.

Disney Dogs Collection Volume 1

Disney Dogs Collection Volume 1 collects 4 previously released DVDs of dog related films and puts them in a cheap 4 pack. I got Dogs V1 and 4 other four movie collections in 2018 and they were $7.49 each. A quick visit to Amazon for the set's cover tells me that Dogs V1 is currently $9.99, which is still a pretty good bargain, if you like these sorts of movies. I mostly got this for The Shaggy Dog. I'd seen it and The Ugly Dachshund back when they were relatively new. I was 6 when The Shaggy Dog came out so I'm guessing that I saw when it was aired on Walt Disney Presents 1958-1961 or Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color 1961-1969. I know I saw The Ugly Dachshund at the Bronx Park Community Center in Winnipeg sometime after it was in the theaters. In the 60s the center would play a kids movie every Saturday. It was a quarter to get in. They screened a lot of Disney movies in 16MM and it was well attended. I would go every Saturday. At some point the guy running the thing started asking me to run across to the Safeway and get him some quarters. He would let me in for free.

The Shaggy Dog 1959 Based on the novel The Hound Of Florence by Felix Salten. He was the same guy that wrote the novel Bambi. Bill Walsh and Lillie Hayward wrote the screenplay and Charles Barton directed. Bill wrote a lot of Disney films and TV shows, including The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat!, Blackbeard's Ghost, The Love Bug and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. I've seen all of those and really enjoyed them as a kid. Most of them are still fairly entertaining but I have a deeply rooted streak of nostalgia when it comes to Disney.

Lillie wrote a large number of films and TV episodes in a career that started in 1924 with Janice Meredith and ended with Smoky in 1966. I didn't recognize much in her early work but I've seen the 1936 film The Walking Dead with Boris Karloff, in 1943 she wrote My Friend Flicka and Black Beauty in 1946, Tarzan And the Lost Safari in 1957. After that she penned The New Adventures Of Spin And Marty, the Annette TV series, plus several other Disney programs and films.

In the commentary with Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine they both are very complementary to director Charles Barton. His career started in 1934 with Wagon Wheels, a Randolph Scott movie I've seen and enjoyed. After that I don't think I'd seen any of his films until the 1940s, when he started directing films for Abbott and Costello. I know I've seen all of those. In the 1950s he moved into TV directing episodes of shows like Amos And Andy, The Great Gildersleeve and Disney's Zorro. He kept directing TV until 1971 when he retired.

Fred McMurray and Jean Hagen are the mom and dad to Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran. Tim Considine is Tommy's pal and Annette Funicello is the gal that Tim and Tommy are both interested in. Cecil Kellaway is a professor at a museum and he's the source of the Borgia ring that turns people into dogs. Tim's natural clumsiness acquires the ring and reading the writing on the ring turns Tim into the big sheepdog in the house next door. For some reason the ring doesn't turn people into their own dog but merges their body with a nearby dog.

The new neighbor with the dog is played by Alexander Scourby, he's a scientist who's also a spy. He plans to steal some plans from a local military site. Tim and the gang of kids help put a stop to that.

There's plenty of silly stuff and slapstick. Good cast with Alexander Scourby, Roberta Shore, James Westerfield, Strother Martin and Paul Frees. I'd last seen this in 2009 and wound up enjoying it again.

The Shaggy DA 1978 Based on the same novel by Felix Salten, screenplay by Don Tait and direction by Robert Stevenson.

The sequel has Tommy Kirk all grown up, now he's played by Dean Jones. Dean's married to Suzanne Pleshette and they have a little boy. Keenan Wynne is the town's District Attorney and the bad guy. He played that role in several previous Disney movies.

Tim Conway is the comic relief machine, he has the dog that Dean turns into, an ice cream truck with more than 39 flavors, and Jo Anne Worley as his girlfriend. She's in the roller derby. Some criminals are working the city pretty hard and Keenan is doing next to nothing. In fact, he's getting a cut from local fence Vic Tayback. Dick Van Patten is Keenan's henchman. Luckily they are all bunglers.

After his house is cleaned out Dean decides to run for DA and clean up the town. The crooks steal the ring and it starts working it's mojo while Dean is trying to get his campaign on. The sequel isn't as charming as the first movie, but it's still OK. I was still entertained and would watch the pair of them again.

The Ugly Dachshund 1966 Adapted from the novel of the same name by GB Stern, screenplay is by Albert Alley, direction by Norman Tokar. Albert wrote a whole lot of 60s and 70s TV, shows like Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, The Rifleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, Laramie, Rawhide, and The Magical World Of Disney. Norman started directing in TV with shows like The Bob Cummings Show, Leave It To Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. He started directing feature films for Disney with Big Red in 1963 and went on to direct over a dozen films for them. He directed 31 episodes of The Magical World Of Disney.

Dean Jones is an artist and Suzanne Pleshette is his wife, she's a stay at home wife and is totally fixated on her Dachshund. The dog they have is pregnant and  vet Charlie Ruggles delivers the trio of pups. Dean takes a liking to the runt of the litter of the Great Dane that Charles has. It's been rejected by the mother who has too many pups for he milk supply so Dean sneaks it into the house claiming it was later delivery. Susanne figures it out after a couple of weeks and reluctantly lets Dean keep the dog he's named Brutus.

The Dachshund's are naughty and Brutus often gets unfairly blamed. He's no angel, his large size and playful attitude brings about a lot of destruction. It's all very slapsticky and destructive but there isn't much story other than the day to day at the house. Eventually Brutus saves one of the Dachshunds and he's now Suzanne's pal too. It's not quite as entertaining as the other two and I might skip when I watch the set again.

The Shaggy Dog 2006 Five people wrote the script and Brian Robbins directed. Brian directed Good Burger back in 1997 and I enjoyed that movie more than this one. I liked Ready To Rumble with David Arquette but not so much Norbit. He's produced a lot of TV and films.

I'm no fan of Tim Allen and he made me less interested in this movie all the way through. He's the assistant DA to Danny Glover and Kristin Davis is his wife. Robert Downey Jr has a dog stolen from a Chinese monastery, the dog has been alive for 80 years and he wants to know why. He's been experimenting on a long life serum with his Partner Phillip Michael Hall and they are using animals.

A local teacher is being tried for trying to free the animals and setting fire to the lab. Tim is working the case and his daughter is mad at him for taking the case. Tim gets bitten by the 80 year old dog and he starts turning into a dog but unlike the other films he doesn't merge with the existing dog. The two dogs are mistaken for each other throughout the film. Eventually things get sorted out and the villains are revealed.

There's plenty of slapstick and some jokes but I didn't find it more than about average. I'd probably skip it when I watch the first two movies.

Mr Horatio Knibbles 1971

Mr Horatio Knibbles 1971 Story by Wallace Bosko, screenplay by Peter Blackmore, direction by Robert Hird. It's part of the Children's Film Foundation.

Mary wants a rabbit for her birthday but her mom says no. Mary meets a giant invisible rabbit called Mr Knibbles in the park. They have some adventures and cause a few problems. It has a few laughs but it's pretty predictable. You can see it on YouTube in the link above but don't expect anything outstanding.

Friday Night Movies 802

Percy 1971 Based on Raymond Hitchcock's novel of the same name. Hugh Leonard wrote the script and Ralph Thomas directed this British film about a guy who gets the first penis transplant. Terence Feely contributed some additional material and Michael Palin is listed on the IMDb as an uncredited key writer. Ray Davies (The Kinks) supplies the music.

Hywel Bennett is the guy and Percy is the penis's nickname. The man who supplied the penis had climbed out the window of a woman he was shagging. Her husband had come home and she told her lover to go out on the balcony. Problem is there wasn't any balcony there and the man plummets to the ground, he fall broken by Hywel's crotch. The pile of man meat is rushed to the hospital where Denholm Elliott does the surgery.

Hywel is troubled by his new member, not so much by the larger size but who donated it. No one will tell him anything about the donor but a nice nurse gives him a list of possibilities to investigate. Hywel is also troubled by the media, first when the story breaks and again once the newspapers reveal his identity. All his efforts put him in plenty of goofy situations that sadly lack much humor. Ralph Thomas has directed better movies than this. Eventually things get sorted out for Hywel and he has a happy ending.

My not finding it to be that funny means I'm probably not going to watch it again so I won't need to go find a DVD. Good thing, the DVD is out of print and available copies are too much money, $30 plus. You Can see a copy on YouTube. There's also a better copy on Rarelust you can download.

Percy's Progress 1974 Re-titled It's Not The Size That Counts for US release. Written by Sid Colin and an uncredited Harry H Corbett, Ian La Frenais gets an additional dialog credit, Ralph Thomas returns to direct this way below average sequel. It really doesn't have much of anything in common with the first movie other than it being about a guy with the first penis transplant. It's more like a typical sex comedy than Percy was but it's just not that funny.

 

The cast is filled with good character actors, Elke Sommer, Denholm Elliott, Judy Geeson, Harry H Corbett, Vincent Price, Julie Ege, Barry Humphries, James Booth, Bernard Lee and George Coulouris. I didn't find most of them that interesting here. I was disappointed in the end, partly because of the state of the movie, partly because I had already bought the DVD. It's part of Network's series The British Film. Doubtful I'll watch it again.

Dracula And Son 1976

Dracula And Son 1976 Based on a 1975 novel by Claude Klotz, screenplay by Alain Godard, Jean-Marie Poiré and Édouard Molinaro, directed by Édouard Molinaro.

Christopher Lee is Dracula and Bernard Menez is his son Ferdinand. In this universe vampires can breed with humans so Dracula can have a son. The mother dies after Ferdinand is born and he's raised in Dracula's castle in Transylvania.

They're in the castle for a number of years and Ferdinand shows little sign of being a blood sucker like daddy. He's a grown man when WW2 breaks out. Father and son escape but their caskets are thrown into the sea. Dracula winds up London and Ferdinand winds up in Paris.

Years pass and it's modern day, Dracula gets hired to play a vampire in a movie, he becomes famous overnight. Ferdinand sees him on the TV and they are reunited. Ferdinand still doesn't want to be a vampire and he's fallen for a lady.

There's a bit of friction when it turns out Dracula knew her and had his eye on her. It'll all work itself out fairly well.There's a happy ending for our boy Ferdinand but hardly one for his dad.

It's fun to look at, plenty of nice locations and sets. The script isn't great, a lot of the jokes are pretty goofy, but I had a few laughs and was glad to have seen it. I might even want to watch it again someday.

Science Fiction Sunday 598

Up first is The Final Programme, it's British, it came out in 1973, and it's the only film adapted from a Michael Moorcock novel. The movie was called Last Days Of Man On Earth in the US and a few other places. Robert Fuest is the writer and director. His previous two films were the Dr Phibes series and they were much more entertaining.

I first saw it back in 2001 and rated it "fairish" on my Watched Movie List. After watching it again I'm not thinking it's much better than that and that ain't even barely average. I got more enjoyment out of the cinematography than the story. It's very stylish and colorful. The locations are quite interesting. It's the characters that are annoying. What a load of jerks and assholes.

It's somewhat in the future and there's been an incident or two, Amsterdam is ash, the Vatican is gone, it might be the end of civilization. Jerry Cornelius's father has died and he's left a programme to develop a hybrid human that's immortal and self replicating. The programme is on microfilm and it's in dad's safe at home. Some scientists, headed by Graham Crowden, want it.

Jerry leads a raid on the house and his brother defends the place. In the struggle Jerry accidentally kills his sister but the evil Miss Brunner gets the microfilm. Miss Brunner somehow consumes people. Jerry's brother shoots Jerry but he doesn't die. There's a good bit of chasing about by these two knobs. Again, the locations were more interesting than most of the action.

Eventually the microfilm, the scientists, Miss Brunner and Jerry are all in one place. The experiment goes on with a nice laughable ending. It's supposed to be a comedy but I'm often laughing at stuff that isn't jokes. I'll probably never get back to the DVD, lucky for me it was used and fairly cheap.

Victor Frankenstein is a 2017 re-imagining of Frankenstein. There's little of the novel in the movie and the whole thing is now being told by a completely new character. He's one of a legion of new characters. It crapped out at the box office and I can see why. Those characters suck.

Total Film compared the movie to the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes films, loud, flashy, busy, but I find it's lacking the interesting characters that come with Guy's films. The screenplay was written by Max Landis and the director was Paul McGuigan. His previous film was Push in 2009 and I didn't think too much of that, before that he directed the 2006 gangster film Lucky Number Slevin. That was a bit more entertaining.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Igor, he's the narrator and he's got a hunchback. Victor, played by James McAvoy, finds Igor in a circus, acting a sad clown, but he's really knowledgeable about human anatomy. He's all self taught. Victor rescues him and the owner calls the coppers. A man was killed during the escape by a scummy circus guy and that's blamed on Victor and Igor. A completely insane Scotland Yard detective takes the case and when he finds out more about what Victor is up to, he goes full on religious zealot. He throws away his career in his drive to get Victor.

It goes on and on, though only 91 mins, it seems much longer, I was getting tired of spending time with Victor. It's nicely produced, the sets and locations look really good but all the flashy crashy stuff can't make up for a weak story. There are better Frankenstein films out there. I'd watch those again before I would watch this once more.

Friday Night Movies 798

I didn't spend much time on Black Wake, a 2018 horror movie dressed up in a pseudo-documentary skin. I turned the speed up to 1.5 and passed this turd in less than an hour. Still time wasted.

Murder By Death is the film adaptation of Neil Simon's play, it was directed by Robert Moore. Robert worked mostly in the theater, he only directed two more films, The Cheap Detective and Chapter Two, both were based on Neil Simon plays. I hadn't seen any of those movies but I do have a recently arrived copy of TCD. Murder By Death has poster art by Charles Addams, the design is also used in the opening and closing credits.

I'm not a big Neil fan, his work is of little interest, I often don't find it funny. I though I would take a chance on Murder By Death when I saw it used for 3 bucks. I am a fan of the characters that are parodied in the film. The story pits 5 pairs of detectives against each other and the guy who set the whole thing up. They are all called to the a mansion by Lionel Twain, there they are challenged to solve a murder that will take place at midnight, there's a million dollar prize for the winner. Truman Capote plays the mysterious Mr Twain, Nancy Walker is the maid, and Alec Guinness is the butler. 

Starting at the left it's James Coco as Milo Perrier, behind him is James Cromwell as Milo's driver, Milo is based on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Then it's Eileen Brennan and Peter Falk as Tess Skeffington and Sam Diamond, he's based on Sam Spade, the hard boiled detective in stories by Dashiell Hammett. He's the only hard boiled detective in the lot, the rest are more cozy detectives.

The two ladies in back are Estelle Winwood and Elsa Lanchester as Miss Withers and Jessica Marbles. Another parody of an Agatha Christie character the elderly Miss Marple. Miss Withers is Jessica's nurse but she's gotten old and Jessica takes care of her. The Withers name might be a reference to Hildegarde Withers, a spinster amateur detective who appeared in several novels and stories by Stuart Palmer. There's a nice 6 film Hildegarde Withers collection on DVD from Warner Archives. I've seen all the films and they are a little more enjoyable than the film I just watched.That's mostly for the interplay between Hildegarde and the irritated police detective played by James Gleason.

Peter Sellers plays Inspector Sidney Wang who is based on Earl  Charlie Chan. You can't really seen him but Richard Narita plays Inspector Wang's adopted Japanese son Willie. I know, weak ass wang jokes, Neil you let me down in the smallest ways. On the far right are David Niven and Maggie Smith, they play Dick and Dora Charleston, and they are based on Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man series. Asta becomes Myron.

I found it kind of amusing but hardly a laugh riot. A number of the jokes were very dated and kind of sad. It seems slow on top of that but that could be me. I don't know if I would bother with it again but I have it so I might. I'm still going to take a crack at The Cheap Detective.

Since I had the time I put on The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming. I had just picked it up today, another on used for 3 bucks. I used to have a copy from TV but that tape failed and got tossed out. It's based on a novel of the same name by Nathaniel Benchley, the screenplay is by William Rose, Norman Jewison is the director. The movie came out in 1966 and WOW, what a difference compared to the first two movies.

A Russian submarine runs aground near an island off the New England coast. Some sailors paddle to shore, they want to get a large boat to tow them off the bar. Alan Arkin, in his first movie, plays the head of the shore team. John Phillip Law plays the handsome Russian sailor, Theodore Bikel plays the Captain of the submarine.

The sailor's come across Carl Reiner and his family, Eva Marie Saint plays the wife, they have a couple of kids. The sailors get rumbled right away and take over Carl's vacation home. They cut the phone line and take the car to town, leaving Jude in charge of the two kids and the pretty babysitter. Hardly anything goes right for the poor Russians and it's the middle of the Cold War. They're all worried they'll get shot by the locals.

The town starts hearing about an invasion and goes nuts, especially after being stirred up by Paul Ford. He's a big ol' veteran and the local head of the Legion, sadly, he's lacking any smarts. Police Chief Brian Keith has a hard time keeping things in line, Jonathan Winters is his deputy. There's plenty of frantic running about and occasional gun fire. Luckily, no one get hurt too much. Eventually the chaos builds to a tense stand off after the sub makes it's way to the harbor dock.

There's a short Norman Jewison interview on the DVD and he talks about showing the film in Russia to a bunch of Russian film makers. They didn't care much for the build up to the stand off, the Captain thinks the town has captured the missing shore party, he's ready to shell the town with his cannon, his sailors stand ready with machine guns. The towns people stand ready with their rifles and pistols. When the tension breaks, in a good way, the Russian film makers clapped and cried. I too.

There are such great performances here, a great script. It was a pleasure to watch and it's a bit of an important film in ways you can read about here. I'll watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 786

11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 British heist film with Charles Grodin, James Mason  and Candice Bergen. It's based on a novel by Gerald A Browne, Charles Grodin did the adaptation, Jeffrey Bloom wrote the screenplay, Aram Avakian did the directing. I'm not much of a fan of Charles or Candice but they do OK for the most part. Charles is a small diamond merchant, he often deals with The System, a prestigious diamond house at 11 Harrowhouse Street in London.

Charles gets involved with millionaire Trevor Howard who hires him to obtain a big fancy diamond for his collection. Charles takes the million dollar check, the stone is bought, cut and stolen all in a week. Now Charles is in hock to Trevor for a million bucks. Trevor blackmails Charles into stealing all the diamonds from The System. John Gielgud s the head of the firm, James Mason is one of his employees. There's a whole sad sub plot with James that makes him turn against his employers.

The robbery is a success. The System had a lot of uncut diamonds but selling them could crash the market. Charles has a fun plan to keep them secure and out of anyone's hands. It's fun enough but it's not going to be something I'd bother buying.

The Black Shield Of Falworth is a 1954 Tony Curtis film set in English when Henry the 4th was King. It's based on a Howard Pyle novel called Men Of Iron, screenplay by Oscar Brodney, directed by Rudolph Maté. Tony is a peasant who is really the son of a nobleman who had been accused falsely of treason. Tony's dad was murdered by the Earl of Alban and his lands taken. Tony winds up in training for The Earl of Macworth. He doesn't believe that Tony's dad was a traitor but he has no proof. He had Tony trained up and eventually the day for Tony to fight the evil Earl does come.

Every now and again I like these big Hollywood adventure tales. It was fun with all the usual knights in armor stuff going on. There's a bit of romance, plenty of court intrigue, a few punch ups, and jousting. This is one that I might want to watch again, Tony's no Errol Flynn but he's alright, so is the movie.  

Not Now Comrade 1977

Not Now Comrade is a 1977 British farce with Leslie Phillips. Ray Cooney wrote the screenplay and co-directed with Harold Snoad. The Wikipedia says it was supposed to be the second of a series of "Not Now..." films, after Not Now, Darling, but it didn't do as well as the first one and they put that series to bed.

That's Carol Hawkins, she's been in a couple of the Carry On series, the Carry On TV show, Up Pompeii, Please Sir! and When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. She's a stripper named Barbara and she's dressed like that to help a Russian ballet dancer defect. Her and her tassels distract the men guarding the visiting ballet troupe and she tells the dancer Rudi, played by Lewis Flander, to hide in her car boot. Leslie Phillips is Commander Rimmington, he stops to ogle Barbara and and so does Ian Lavender. Some might remember Ian from Dad's Army. Ian's distracted and he runs into Leslie's parked car, opening the car boot. See where that's going.

Once they all get to Leslie's country house there's plenty of yelling, running about and a plethora of mistaken identity and people pretending to be someone else. There's plenty of sexual innuendo but there's no time for the real thing, everyone's running about pretending to be someone else. Eventually it all works out well enough and I had a few laughs. So few I could see why it didn't do so well at the box office. No one's going to get all excited about it and tell their mates to hike on down to the cinema so they can get a bellyful of laughs. I'll probably watch it again, save it for later, when I'm a bit more senile. I won't care so much if there's not as many laughs.