This takes place in Victorian England. It deals with four lusty men and their attempts to have sex. The plots were hard to follow (the thick English accents didn't help) but I THINK I figured them out. Shaftoe (Tom Bell) is lusting after virginal sweet Hilaret (Sussannah York). Lusty (Jim Dale) is after Cloris (Elaine Taylor) by posing as Lord Foppington (Christopher Plummer) to get her money...and sex. Rambles (Ian Bannen) is basically going after any woman he sees.
The jokes are sexually crude enough to make Benny Hill blush...but they're actually more silly today than anything else. It's really hard to believe this got an R rating back in 1969. There's no nudity, sex, swearing or violence--just a lot of sex talk that wouldn't raise an eyebrow today. In fact TCM played it on afternoon TV recently! This is not a good movie (far from it) but it does have its moments and it is amusing to see Plummer play it WAY over the top as Lord Foppington. I kept having to remind myself that this was the same man who did Shakespeare on stage! Actually all the acting is good and has people going full tilt with many asides to the camera. No one is really bad but some are very good--Glynis Johns goes full tilt as Mrs. Sqeezum, Ian Bannen is having the time of his life playing Rambles and Jim Dale hams it up nonstop. Also this was a pretty big budget movie--it shows an accurate portrayal of how grubby and dirty England was back then (even though it was shot in Ireland!). So this isn't a good movie but has enough moments to take a look at.
The jokes are sexually crude enough to make Benny Hill blush...but they're actually more silly today than anything else. It's really hard to believe this got an R rating back in 1969. There's no nudity, sex, swearing or violence--just a lot of sex talk that wouldn't raise an eyebrow today. In fact TCM played it on afternoon TV recently! This is not a good movie (far from it) but it does have its moments and it is amusing to see Plummer play it WAY over the top as Lord Foppington. I kept having to remind myself that this was the same man who did Shakespeare on stage! Actually all the acting is good and has people going full tilt with many asides to the camera. No one is really bad but some are very good--Glynis Johns goes full tilt as Mrs. Sqeezum, Ian Bannen is having the time of his life playing Rambles and Jim Dale hams it up nonstop. Also this was a pretty big budget movie--it shows an accurate portrayal of how grubby and dirty England was back then (even though it was shot in Ireland!). So this isn't a good movie but has enough moments to take a look at.