Entertainment For Lively Minds
Miranda Hart is Frankie Howerd
Posted by Glenbervie on 20 September 2011 - 7:41pm.
Okay, so I was looking around on YouTube for the Up Pompeii movie (I blame whoever it was that posted the caption competition pic the other day with Rod Stewart and Hilary Pritchard).
Anyway, found the intro in which Frankie pops up from behind a model of Pompeii as a sight gag. His movement and mannerism just made me think, "It's Miranda Hart." Especially at 0:38-0:39.
Is this where she gets it from?
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Well spotted!
Although your theory wobbles a bit by observing that Frankie Howerd was actually funny.
Of course, other modern mainstream BBC TV characters have sometimes adopted 70s comedic personae:
aaaaand have just finished watching Up Pompeii
So in a terrible outburst of heterosexuality, here are Barbara Murray, Adrienne Posta and Madeline Smith, from a movie made 40 years ago
Lance Percival: "I've hurt my coccyx"
Lurcio: "Ohhh! I thought he fell on his back!"
B'dum tissshhh.
I also like the chillingly accurate audio effect on the hangover scene (everything under those conditions being suddenly painfully loud)
Michael Hordern's in it! Bloody hell! It's like Karajan doing the string arrangement on a Peter Noone single.
quite astonishing people involved in that movie
it's almost like they rounded up all the British character acting talent that existed then dragged them along to do a turn (Russell Hunter, Bill Fraser, Patrick Cargill, Lance Percival...)
also, it was produced by Ned Sherrin, music by Carl Davis, and with fleeting appearances by Darth Vader (David Prowse), the bloke from Play School and Play Away (Derek Griffiths) and 'many more'
"How does he do that?"
- an expression I still use with stunning regularity, as it remains a favourite movie to this day.
I happen to have a DVD with both Up Pompeii and the less stellar but still pretty good Up The Chastity Belt (a gratefully received birthday pressie).
Up The Front is not mentioned in this house...
Having read an excellent Frankie Howerd biography...
...(author escapes me, maybe Graham McCann) I sought out on ebay a dodgy copy of an otherwise unavailable early 70-s Frankie British comedy film (again, name escapes) - not a bad film, certainly good moments, but the author had made the point of saying that this was a British comedy film of the 70s with unusually high production values. I sort of take his point and yet it STILL looked like it was made on £3.20 and a load of borrowed 'resting' thesps in a weekend.
There seems to be an INCREDIBLE difference in budget/production values between what gets made for cinema these days and the half-baked junk that limped out in the 70s. Why did people stand for it? A 20 year old in a film school these days could make a better film than most of the 70s British film industry, it seems to me. Why was it SO crappy?
Because
We weren't overrun with immersive, 50" widescreen, 3D entertainment as we are now. It's easy to look back in hindsight and say things like that, but I certainly don't remember thinking that way at the time. And this was the era before big screen effects wizardry. All there'd been by that stage was 2001, really. The change brought on by Star Wars was yet to come.
But then, look at "classic" TV made back then. Look at the sets and lighting on I Claudius. If you did that today you'd get laughed at. It's forty years ago. The jump between the 30's and the 70's had been big enough, but the leap from then to now (both around 40 years) is cataclysmic in comparison.
Oddly enough, while the sumptuous Downton and slick Spooks returned to our screen on Sunday, I waved aside both to watch some old Sapphire and Steel (Assignment 2: Railway Station, geek types). Yes, the sets were cheap; yes the lighting was a bit too old-school theatrical, and over 8 half hour episodes not much happened by modern pyrotechnical standards. But guess what? It was a ton better than the rather limp Torchwood: Miracle Day (with all its jazzy effects and slick edits). Why? Because the scripting was so much more interesting; the performances were good and the viewer actually had to do some work to watch and take in all of the subtleties.
All good points, and well made...
...you're right: I was in danger of judging yesterdays standards by today. In fairness, though, I love lots of 60s/70s TV drama - virtually filmed plays, a lot of them. But it's the cheapo vibe of so many of the 70s Brit comedy cinema films that still puzzles me, even after your very eloquent 30s-70s / 70s-now equation. I mean, the very idea of no less than three 'On The Buses' spin off films... In fact, the very idea of about 500 OTB TV episodes is mind boggling enough!
Also true
There were lots of spin-off films, like the OTB movies, the two Steptoes, and the inevitable film version of all the sitcoms. Back then, I suppose the budgets were much smaller, as opposed to what you can get away with for The Inbetweeners or Kevin and Perry, for example.
The "On The Buses" movies were massive!
The first one especially was the biggest movie in the UK in its year, a year that also had a Bond film, which is staggering to contemplate... and as a fan of old sitcoms, I have to say I find the TV series pretty unwatchable now, except socialogically - in this day and age it really does look as though the family lives in a slum, though I guess in 1970 it was just "working-class"...
And is the mystery Frankie Howerd film mentioned above "The House In Nightmare Park"? It's always mentioned in "why isn't this on DVD?" pieces... but even that cash-starved effort has Ray Milland in it!
Yes, that's it Mickey...
...as I saud, I got a non-official copy from someone on ebay. It does have great moments, and Frankie's character/persona in it - a pompous ham actor doing a one-man Shakespeare show who winds up in a creepy old mansion - is terrific. It really should be out on DVD properly, but then a lot of these old films simply slip through the cracks in terms of ownership/licensing issues, or sometimes just finding a good print.
Oddly, i was thinking the opposite
For a 'cheap' British movie of the early '70s, Up Pompeii was very much a product of its time but it had a big cast (market scenes, orgy scenes) and actual sets ... it made me think "I bet they spent a fair bit on in comparison to other film budgets back then"
The TV/Film industry to mock or criticize.......
.....isn't the one of forty years ago but the joke that is film and TV making in this country today.
Erm.....'The Avengers', 'The Prisoner', 'Accident', 'Kes', 'If...', 'Performance', 'Get Carter' anyone?
What is the British Film Industry (does it exist in 2011?) today if it isn't a succession of remakes or another lads' film about football hooliganism in the dire 1980s and with an equally dire soundtrack?
In forty years time, people will be looking at CGI and saying 'what a pile of s***e'!
Miranda Hart
Freakishly big woman pretends to be special needs in textbook middle class TV sitcom containing no discernibly funny moments.
What's going on there?
I don't enjoy Miranda Hart's shows
That said, I don't "hate" them ... she's just a comedian that leaves me mostly cold
but when I saw Frankie Howerd on YouTube for the first time in ages, it just clicked - her mannerisms, her delivery and the style of talking directly to the audience just seemed very Howerd/Up Pompeii
I can't understand the hatred of Miranda
She's very derivative I agree, and her series can be very variable in quality, but the 3 handed episode "The Psychiatrist" is a comedy classic - great performances from her, Patricia Hodge and Mark Heap.
I like her
and - interestingly to me at least - so do my tweenie daughters. She is funny in the same way as Harry Hill. I actually laugh when I watch these people, whereas Stewart Lee (much loved on this site I gather) really is not funny at all....[runs for the hills]
Well, I must say that...
...I find her show hilarious! Intriguingly, though, Humph the 'Psychiatrist' episode I felt *didn't* work - I appreciate what they were trying to do but it didn't tick the boxes for me. I believe Carol From Luton feels the same.