We don't talk enough about the state of British comedy in the 60s. Generally, I've found British comedy can oscillate wildly between the dry wit we typically associate it with and a sloppier form that seems closely tied to vaudeville in its silliness. In the period before Monty Python, there's a strange middle period where the counterculture starts to be present but is frequently lost in the woods leading to films like The Knack..and How to Get It or the Carry On films or The Magic Christian which are so detached from reality and film form that they aren't even subversive or experimental but just tiring. There's no plot to be found here other than Peter Sellers's billionaire adopting Ringo Starr and traversing around Britain doing...things. There's a sequence on a train where a passenger is gaslit by rotating passengers before being sucked into a flashing nightclub where he is danced on and is then rounded up by Nazi guards. Or the climactic scene on a yacht filled with celebrities and a vampire and other strange characters that sinks after the captain is kidnapped by a gorilla only for them to find out the ship wasn't real and was instead built in a warehouse with signs reading DOWN WITH PANTS and SMASH CAPITALISM. Is this counterculture? It feels like something that parades around in signifiers of its hip satire but uses them as loose decoration more than anything for the kind of visual mania you'd find in something like Airplane! I hate to sound like a stick in the mud about this (though the film seems to be largely disliked anyhow) but it's so scatterbrained that it becomes more like a rapid succession of diversions than anything else, a film that is both terminally silly and yet lacks any real punch to it. It's a film that's fun to describe certainly and there are some sequences where the comedy works better (the auction comes to mind) but overall this really doesn't work unfortunately (although maybe it's all worth it for Yul Brynner's part).

We don't talk enough about the state of British comedy in the 60s. Generally, I've found British comedy can oscillate wildly between the dry wit we typically associate it with and a sloppier form that seems closely tied to vaudeville in its silliness. In the period before Monty Python, there's a strange middle period where the counterculture starts to be present but is frequently lost in the woods leading to films like The Knack..and How to Get It or the Carry On films or The Magic Christian which are so detached from reality and film form that they aren't even subversive or experimental but just tiring. There's no plot to be found here other than Peter Sellers's billionaire adopting Ringo Starr and traversing around Britain doing...things. There's a sequence on a train where a passenger is gaslit by rotating passengers before being sucked into a flashing nightclub where he is danced on and is then rounded up by Nazi guards. Or the climactic scene on a yacht filled with celebrities and a vampire and other strange characters that sinks after the captain is kidnapped by a gorilla only for them to find out the ship wasn't real and was instead built in a warehouse with signs reading DOWN WITH PANTS and SMASH CAPITALISM. Is this counterculture? It feels like something that parades around in signifiers of its hip satire but uses them as loose decoration more than anything for the kind of visual mania you'd find in something like Airplane! I hate to sound like a stick in the mud about this (though the film seems to be largely disliked anyhow) but it's so scatterbrained that it becomes more like a rapid succession of diversions than anything else, a film that is both terminally silly and yet lacks any real punch to it. It's a film that's fun to describe certainly and there are some sequences where the comedy works better (the auction comes to mind) but overall this really doesn't work unfortunately (although maybe it's all worth it for Yul Brynner's part).

Average day for two British guys

Average day for two British guys

Should’ve felt more hard-hitting, but ultimately I feel that its commentary on capitalism and wealth is too juvenile and not at all provocative enough.

Should’ve felt more hard-hitting, but ultimately I feel that its commentary on capitalism and wealth is too juvenile and not at all provocative enough.

if you want it here it is come and get is…. make your mind up it’s goooinnnggg fast! if you want annnnnnyyyyy timmmmime i can give it. but you better hurry cause it mayyyy not lassssst.

if you want it here it is come and get is…. make your mind up it’s goooinnnggg fast! if you want annnnnnyyyyy timmmmime i can give it. but you better hurry cause it mayyyy not lassssst.

Have you ever been watching Airplane! and wondered, I wonder what this would be like if the humor was more British? Well if you want it, here it is, come and get it! It was uneven as hell, and Sellers was not nearly as fun as I was hoping, but I enjoyed it. How could you not enjoy watching an insanely rich person fuck with other rich people. And Ringo is there. It’s just fun.

Have you ever been watching Airplane! and wondered, I wonder what this would be like if the humor was more British? Well if you want it, here it is, come and get it! It was uneven as hell, and Sellers was not nearly as fun as I was hoping, but I enjoyed it. How could you not enjoy watching an insanely rich person fuck with other rich people. And Ringo is there. It’s just fun.