Film Review
The third and mercifully last of the three
On the Buses films made in the
early 1970s marked a decisive new low in British film comedy, with its
scriptwriters Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe nonchalantly trotting out
the same tired old gags and tedious comedy routines that they had
already hammered to death in the television series. The shift of
location from a London bus depot to a holiday camp in North Wales
(Pontin's Camp in Prestatyn to be precise) is an obvious attempt to
inject new life into the already decomposing corpse of a deceased
comedy series but instead of something new all we get is a clumsily
cobbled together series of sketches into which almost any British
sitcom could have been crow-barred.
Presumably bored with the usual crowd of lechers, moaners and misfits,
Chesney and Wolfe roped in Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts, the stars
of their other hit comedy of the moment,
Romany Jones (later rebranded as
Yus My Dear) - their presence at
least helps to keep this final
On
the Buses excursion from being a totally dismal swansong.
Other popular television comic actors of the time are carelessly thrown
into the mix, including Wilfrid Brambell, of
Steptoe and Son fame, and Kate
Williams, the likeable star of the racially themed sitcom
Love Thy Neighbour.
Holiday on the Buses has a few
memorably funny moments but for the most part watching it is a long
hard slog through an embarrassing deluge of the kind of politically
incorrect so-called humour that was rife in the 1970s and which,
inexplicably, British audiences just couldn't get enough of. For
anyone wanting to have a sense of just how grim and cruddy life was in
Britain in the 1970s here's a film that delivers just that - comedy
that is anything but pain-free and is now only safe to be administered
with an anaesthetic or a complete moral bypass.
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Stan Butler and his best friend Jack are dismissed by their bus company
when their carelessness causes a multiple collision in the bus
depot. The one consolation is that their longstanding arch-enemy,
Inspector Blake, also loses his job. Stan and Jack soon find a
new job as tour bus crew for a holiday camp in North Wales.
Neither is cheered by the discovery that Blakey has also found a job at
the same camp, as a security officer. Ever one to exploit an
opportunity when he sees one, Stan invites his family to the camp, but
what should have been a relaxing budget break soon degenerates into a
series of catastrophic mishaps...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.