Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

JohnHowardReid One the one hand, this is a peculiar blend of farce, satire, anti- establishment jokes, musical high-jinks, exaggerated character studies and ridiculously camp impersonations, with – on the other hand – romance, tragedy, realism, death and mutilation. Nevertheless, the sexual innuendo rippling through every second phrase to the point of monotony certainly gives a pointer to the overall movie's intended audiences. It would certainly take a genius to form a cohesive film from such disparate elements, but director Michael Blakemore certainly gives it a good college try. His devices include on-location filming, incorporating old newsreel footage, fading in from black-and-white to color and vice versa, and using dissolves, split screen and other mechanical devices. But it doesn't work – basically because the players won't let it work! Just about everyone in the cast has a Victor McLaglen complex and tries to out- act, out-play and out camera-hog everyone else! Worst offender is prolific TV actor Denis Quilley who made only nine or ten films, but John Cleese gives him a good run for his money. Oddly, both Quilley and Cleese are effective at times, showing how the film could have been improved if they had toned their acting down a bit.Another problem is that the musical pastiches are supposed be second-rate, and this is how they are actually played – with enthusiasm, but also with a degree of amateurishness which is sometimes endearing (e.g. the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers pastiche; the Flanagan and Allan skit), sometimes just amateurish (particularly the skits performed by Denis Quilley). The Carmen Miranda and Marlene Dietrich take-offs are particularly inept.Technical credits are highly competent but the film is less effective than the sum of its parts. The finale in which everything is left up in the air is particularly unsatisfactory. Maybe this would work okay on the stage where the disparate elements could be separated by the rise and fall of the curtain. Unfortunately, neither the screenwriter nor the director have been able to come up with a similar solution to the movie.

Steviardo The play - and screenplay - by Peter Nichols is primarily based on his own experiences of his life in an army entertainment troupe (Combined Services Entertainment) in Singapore and on the characters in the troupe with him.(In this troupe were also British Comedy legends-to be,Stanley Baxter and Kenneth Williams) He covers the poor conditions that the artistes had to entertain under,the poor performances given by sub-standard amateurs and how it was all led by an army man with no understanding or taste for 'theatricals'.In reading the negative reviews,the points most criticised are John Cleese's performance and the 'High Camp' element.In the original stage production,the Cleese role was played by Nigel Hawthorne and one would prefer to see him in the film as Cleese seems too close to his Basil Fawlty characterisation to really fit in with the rest of the ensemble.But he still turns in a good performance - most notably in his scenes with Elphick and Quilley.As for the 'High Camp' element,this is a story about an entertainments unit where army personnel had to don drag for their troop shows.Add to that any theatrical setting - whether it be amateur backstage dramatics or the Moulin Rouge - and the story will have by it's very nature theatrical/camp elements.These are part and parcel of the scenario and should be accepted and expected in such a storyline.The entire ensemble is perfectly cast.The performances are well observed and far from stereotypes.They are realistic and likable.When they are homesick,we feel it.When they are injured or killed,it is genuinely heartbreaking.Bruce Payne especially is tear-jerking as the handsome lad who can't wait to get home so he can finally make love to his girl but at the end is returning home in wheelchair and will never have sex again.The standout performance is unquestionably the late Denis Quilley as Terri Dennis (a character loosely based on the drag performer Barri Chatt).His performance,as the only professional 'aritiste' in the company is both funny and moving.Terri is the star of the shows and his scenes as Dietrich,Vera Lynn and Carmen Miranda are brilliantly comedic,as is most of Quilley's performance as the very camp fish out of water.But it is NOT a one-note performance and Terri's character also shows incredible depth,warmth,vulnerability,strength and perhaps the most well-rounded character as a whole.It is an award-worthy performance and a good one to be remembered for.So in a nutshell,this a comedy film that has effective dramatic moments because the acting is so flawless.It has an impressive and memorable star turn,but it still doesn't eclipse the rest of the excellent cast.It is entertaining,heart-warming and very human.And most of all,it deserves to be better known and more widely appreciated

didi-5 The main problem with this movie is the over-dominating personality of John Cleese, doing his authoritarian idiot stuff as he did in Fawlty Towers and earlier in Monty Python. Trouble is, in the context of a 1940s Army entertainment unit, this characterisation is just not right. A similar scenario could be seen a decade or so earlier in TV show 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', with Windsor Davies in what is approximately the Cleese role here. Very different and much more effective.'Privates' does however have other compensations - good within the cast are Michael Elphick, Simon Jones, Joe Melia, David Bamber, and Nicola Pagett. Best of all is the much-missed Denis Quilley as Terri, that painted captain cavorting about and by far the funniest thing on screen.

Allen Blank After reading a bunch of negative reviews of this film I thought I should post my own. This is a comedy-drama, based on a theatrical play/ It is funny, sad, and serious, sometimes all at once. It has made up it's mind what type of film it's trying to be. It's about a theatrical unit doing a touring variety show in the Malayisan jungle at the very end on WWII.It's also about a commanding officer who had missed the war and is now trying to get his taste of the war by using this unit he's in command of to fight some kind of enemy. It's also about an unscruplous sargent who is using this unit to arm the rebel soldiers and make some money on it. It's also about a poor eurasian woman who is pregnant by this sargent and has to trick another soldier to get an abortion to lose the baby.The film does this by using humor which is something I do in my everyday life to get thru a trying day, and what's wrong with that. The one character that holds the film together is the non-military head of the acting troupe, Terry Dennis (Denis Quiley, in a award callibar performance). Terry who changes all male names to female including "Jessica Christ", and has a heart for everyone in the troupe is the glue that holds this film together. He is not a stereotype performance but a flesh and blood character. John Cleese is the colonel Blimpish officer in charge of the troupe, who doesn't really understand theatrical types, nor does he want to. Cleese is fine in the role, so is the rest of the cast including Nicola Pagget as the eurasian woman and the always wonderful Simon Jones as Eric Young-Love. Jones created his part in the original stage production, and later on played the Cleese part in a production Off-Broadway here in New York with Jim Dale as Terry Dennis. Denis Quiley and Joe Melia also created their parts in the original Royal Shakespeare production of the play.Don't listen to the negative reviews, try this for yourselves, I think you'll like it. You may, like me, shed a tear or two before it's over, and then laugh so hard you'll fall out of your seat during the end credits.