by Ivor Biggun » Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:44 am
The problem with film adaptations of television programmes is that they spend a great deal of the film recycling all the gags they used in the series.They also remove the main characters from the settings where you are used to seeing them and put them in unfamiliar locations. The plots are also typically weak because the writers have already used all their best ideas for television and have run out of fresh stories. I had high hopes for the On the Buses films and the Porridge film, but was really let down by them. The Steptoe films didn't meet my expectations, either. Some ideas are best expressed on the small screen rather than the big one.
The recycled joke thing also happens when a writer from one programme or film moves to another and they expect that you won't notice. Talbot Rothwell wrote for both the Carry On films and for Up, Pompeii! and almost every joke he wrote for Carry On appears in it at some point. And speaking of Up, Pompeii! that brings us to another disappointing film adaptation. The only high point was Rita Webb as Cassandra the soothsayer. Everything else was recycled gags and Frankie Howerd camping it up to the max to distract you from how awful everything else in the film was.
I thought we'd nick a wreath off one of the graves as we went in.