Film Review
Just as its horror output was beginning to wane in popularity the
British company Hammer Films suddenly acquired a new and badly needed
string to its bow in the early 1970s with its first
On the Buses film. The move
from stylish Gothic horror to lowbrow comedy snatched from the small
screen was as profitable as it was improbable and Hammer found it had a
sure-fire hit, bringing to the big screen one of the most popular
British sitcoms of the time. The film's massive popularity (it
was the highest grossing British film of 1971) ensured that other
sitcoms would soon enjoy the same film makeover treatment, although few
were as successful as Hammer's contribution to this short-lived and
much-maligned genre.
Like the original television series before it, the critics had great
fun trashing the
On the Buses films,
but this critical onslaught did not prevent them from being box office
gold, films that would be repeated endlessly on television throughout the
70s and 80s. The popular appeal of these films is hard to fathom,
however. The humour consists almost entirely of bus-themed sight
gags (mostly brilliantly realised) and tacky, overly repeated innuendo,
of the kind that had already been worn into the ground by the
Carry On films. The main
characters are, without exception, unlikeable comic book grotesques
which comprise a pair of sad, middle-aged lechers, a Hitler-like
authority figure and a fat woman in glasses with an eating disorder and
a constantly whinging husband. We are clearly not intended
to sympathise with any of these wretches; rather, we are expected to
gloat at whatever misfortunes their sadistic creators throw at
them. It's like a grubby circus show where the 'exhibits' are
routinely lined up and electrocuted for our amusement - sad and degrading.
Helped along by a jaunty theme song, the first
On the Buses film manages to be a
lot less depressing, and a lot funnier, than the hideous television
series that spawned it. A plethora of imaginative visual gags
make up for the coarse innuendo and pretty aimless narrative, although
the surfeit of bad taste and lack of anything even vaguely
approximating to a likeable character make it a more than slighly
nausea-inducing ride. The two subsequent films,
Mutiny on the Buses and
Holiday on the Buses, plumbed
the depths even further, garnishing the recycled gags with a liberal
dose of toilet humour. The
On
the Buses films may look like relics from a bygone era (which
they certainly are, seemingly pre-dating the reign of Queen Nefertiti),
but their peculiar brand of 1970s political incorrectness does
occasionally manage to extract a laugh or two, although you do wonder
how such a lame comedy, doused in misogynistic, homophobic and racist
bigotry, could ever have passed as mainstream entertainment.
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
A chronic staff shortage allows London bus driver Stan Butler and his
colleagues to get away with murder. The work-shy Stan has
elevated liberty-taking to a fine art and his arch-enemy, Inspector
Blake, has no hope of disciplining him. However, the boot ends up
on the other foot when the bus company decides to employ women bus
drivers. With his job and love life now in peril Stan enlists the
help of his faithful conductor Jack to discredit the new female
drivers. Meanwhile, life in the Butler household is more strained
than ever now that Stan's sister Olive is expecting her first baby...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.