Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

ShadeGrenade User 'Cosmo-Bongo' and his wife must have led very sheltered lives if they found this film 'horribly upsetting'. For millions of British working class people at that time, this was their way of life; cobblestones, tin baths, outside toilets, and all. If I were you, sir, I'd stay well clear of 'A Clockwork Orange'. It'll most likely give you a stroke! The boom in films-based-on-British-sitcoms started in 1969 with 'Till Death Us Do Part and ended in 1980 with 'George & Mildred'. In between there was 'Dad's Army', 'On The Buses' ( three films in fact ), 'Man About The House', 'Please Sir!', and 'For The Love Of Ada' to name but a few. 'Steptoe & Son', while not a patch on the television series, is nevertheless an above average movie. Harold and Albert go to a stag night at the local rugby club, where the former is smitten by the vivacious stripper Zita ( Carolyn Seymour ). So smitten, in fact, that he proposes to and marries her. Of course the 'dirty old man' does not like this one little bit. When the couple go to Spain on honeymoon, he goes along with them, but gets food poisoning, and demands to go home. Harold is forced to leave his bride behind, where she is easy prey for the randy hotel manager...Being a film this is of course ruder than the series. Harold uses bad language, there's nudity ( even Albert gets to display his bare bottom ), and lots of frank talk about sex. The conflict between the Steptoes escalates into full-scale war. Carolyn Seymour is terrific. No wonder she was later asked to strip in workingmen's clubs for real! Also in the cast are Mike Reid ( who went on to become a star through 'The Comedians' television series ) and Perry St.Clare ( an alias for female impersonator Patrick Fyffe, later to become 'Dame Hilda Bracket' ). The film is a bit like 'The Bargee' ( also by Galton & Simpson, and starring Corbett ) in that it too moves from comedy to tragedy and back again. Corbett and Brambell are on sparkling form, particularly when they debate the future of the strange baby they've found in their stable. Only the scene near the end where Harold is beaten up by drunken Old Wendovians doesn't work. Favourite bit? The old man bathing in the kitchen sink. You don't want to know where he puts the dish brush. Standing up, he accidentally exposes himself to a neighbour ( Patsy Smart ).The film did well enough for a superior sequel two years later, entitled 'Steptoe & Son Ride Again'.

cosmo-bongo Truly a disgusting, vile film, with only a small amount of real humour.The character of the father in particular is vulgar in the extreme (intentionally so, obviously), and portrayed in the most pathetic, seedy manner.My wife and I found this film horribly upsetting, with absolutely no redeeming features at all. Frankly, I wish I had never seen it.I consider this British effort to be a sick and gross embarrassment.Those who enjoyed this film have an ability I totally lack: that of rejoicing in a display of deep depravity and squalor.The producers should be ashamed of themselves.

Joseph P. Ulibas Steptoe and Son (1972) was a feature length movie featuring the two leads of the popular English television series. The plot deals with Harold falling for a "scrubber". Albert in his cruel and crude ways can see the marriage will never work, can Harold and his new bride work things out or will his mean old man ruin his plans for a happy family life?The first film is a lot like the television series, a mixture of melodrama and comedy. A tad uneven in some places but it's very enjoyable. The second film is more of a farcical comedy and it's more accessible to non-fans of this brilliant television series.Highly recommended for fans of the t.v. series and for people who want to take a peek at the original "Sanford and Son".

Tom May "Women? They're all scrubbers...!" No, not a good translation; not at all! This lags behind the previous year's "Dad's Army", entirely missing the special, small-screen magic of the seminal television sitcom original, and failing to play interestingly at all with the big screen... you could just about say that this film well represents a Britain entering decline, and more precisely even than that, a *British film industry* entering decline. And that is hardly a recommendation, is it? To be an exemplar of saddening folly...All that remains after the subtlety of the TV original has been surgically stripped away, by Cliff Owen, Galton and Simpson are: endless, dilapidated musical cues, yawn, from the Ron Grainer theme... bolstered sentimentality (that shoddy, thick-eared ending... how much bolder does the second Steptoe film seem in comparison) an increased seediness - with director and writers seemingly detaching themselves completely - fully applicable to something like the 'misbegotten monstrosity' (yours truly on this site) from 1973, "The Mutations". There is a strangely botched, cut-adrift tone about the scene where Harold is beaten up in a rugby club, that I partly hate and recoil it (so far, as a friend intimated, from the mood of the TV series...), but this at least seems an original slant, and emblematic of tensions just rising to the boil in the Britain of 1972... There is, however, an implied prostitute, aye of a 'heart-of-gold' who turns loose woman-traitor 'pon poor auld 'Arold - and beyond-caricature writing of the 'class' element; not to mention, surprisingly misjudged performances from the usually redoubtable leads. Brambell and Corbett collude with the script, and indeed fail to cure it of an essential ham. What would Anthony Aloysius Hancock have made of it all...? I will merely concede that a few moments just about work - chiefly those where G & S play things a little more carefully and B & C touch tenderer nerves - and it is not on the whole an unwatchable affair. But, and oh, how this pains me to say it: it is tiresome, boring, both wilfully detached from reality and what made the TV series great, and also fully in tune with the lazy, tawdry, misogynist 'fuck it, that'll do...' actuality of much of what was allowed to pass for mainstream film-making in the Britain of the time.