Are You Being Served? The Movie (1977)

Waste of time

It is a performances centric movie

A Brilliant Conflict

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The problems with this movie are many. First, there is no laugh track. Let's face it; half the comedy of watching Mr. Humphries come out of the lift dressed like a fairy prince is the audience howling with you. Now, even had the laugh track been present, it would be forced at best; it's simply not funny. Most of the one-liners and sight-gags are simply recycled from the episodes, but with inferior delivery and context. Next the plot suffers from being contrived, itself borrowed from 'Hurrah for the Holidays'. And the lighting and set pieces of Grace Brothers are unfamiliar and distracting.A very disappointing piece that should be skipped. You may wish to see anything and everything that is AYBS?, but are not missing anything by passing this one up.Editing this post after watching it another 10 times... it kind of grows on you I guess. I still give it an objective 2 stars for it's quality (or lack thereof) but for some weird reason we've watched it several times.

This film, based on the tremendously popular "Are You Being Served" British television show that ran from 1972-85 (and still endures on American public television), falls pitifully flat. It plays like one long episode of the television series, but without the spark that earned the series its large and affectionate following.Had this film come at or near the end of the television series' original production run, we might have concluded that the writers and/or players had lost some creative energy. But it didn't. It was released in 1977, at the height of the show's popularity. After the film, the same people went back to create some of the most enjoyable and memorable episodes of the show--they were by no means washed up.The plot plods doggedly through bits recycled from the television series, including some wince-inducing cultural slurs and too much toilet/fart humour. The writers even stoop to the "walk this way" gag, which is as old as time itself. Regular viewers of the TV show will tire at the cut-and-pastedness of the script; newcomers will sit puzzled by the running gags and in-jokes that one can only "get" from the TV show.The actors, while masterful at playing to a live audience (which they did for the television series), seem off balance without the buoyance of audience response, often pausing for laughter that never comes.The aural atmosphere is either dead and silent, containing only the players' voices, or filled in by a Muzakesque musical score entirely indifferent to the events on screen. The lighting also has an unnatural spotlight quality at times. Like makeup, good lighting should look like none at all.That there is tremendous talent here, both in the players and the writers, has been well demonstrated before and after this film. But not during.

This is a film spin off to a sit-com more memorable for its characters at Grace Bros clothing store than its jokes: Mr Humphries ( A camp homosexual ) Ms Brahms ( A slutty single girl ) Mr Harman ( a sleazy janitor ) Mr Lucas ( A jack the lad ) Captain Peacock ( An uptight former military man ) and of course Mrs Slocombe where many of the jokes revolve around her losing her cat - " Has anyone seen my pussy ? " In short it's a comedy that relied on two dimensional characters and innuendo , British humour at its most basic and unsophisticated . It might have been funny at the time but it probably wouldn't raise too many smiles now As most people on this page have noticed this is a very poor film version of the TV series . The first third of the running time is taken up with the characters working at grace brothers clothing store then the action switches to the holiday resort of Costa Plonka and a plot involving a rebel leader about to stage a revolution , but this is secondary to things like a comedy of errors involving Mr Lucas sending a dirty note to Ms Brahms only for Mrs Slocombe to receive it thinking it's from Captain Peacock . This type of humour is very dated now and while Benny Hill might still remain funny , I can't say I laughed much watching this

This is like a Carry on.with loads of laughs Mr Rumbold is absolutely hilarious.Its surprising that so little of the cast were used in carry ons they certainly could tell the same jokes with a twinkle in there eye.this is bawdy postcard humour at its best.