The Magnificent Two (1967)
Directed by Cliff Owen

Film Review

The second of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's four forays in cinema is easily their least successful and the critical reaction the film received is doubtless one of the reasons why their film career failed to take off, despite the duo's burgeoning popularity on British television.  The Magnificent Two lacks the sparkle and enjoyable idiocy of Eric and Ernie's first film, The Intelligence Men (1965) and suffers on account of its low budget (revealed in the locations, which are more Home Counties than South America) and third rate script.  You'd hardly think the film had been written for Morecambe Wise, as it makes not even the meanest attempt to capitalise on what they are good at (which is taking the Mickey out of each other and sending up everything they appear in).  Instead, what we get is a dull and hackneyed tale about a South American revolution that piles cliché upon cliché and almost completely overlooks the fact that this was meant to be a comedy.  There are one or two laughs amidst the mountain of indigestible dross, but these are very few and far between.  There really is nothing magnificent about this film, except for the one or two brief moments when the real Eric and Ernie come out of hiding and show it up for the nonsense that it is.

Film Synopsis

Travelling salesmen Eric and Ernie arrive in the South American town of Parazuellia, hoping to find a ready buyer for their range of realistic toy soldiers.  Instead, they find themselves in the midst of a revolution and Eric is mistaken for the rebel leader Torres, who had the misfortune to fall to his death from a train.  The president of Parazuellia is ousted and Eric, reluctantly, takes his place.  When Eric delivers a televised speech promising Utopia to the country's working poor, the rebel leaders decide that he is a liability and must be assassinated...