Sorry, this movie sucks

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

One-off movies based on TV sit-com series seldom work, which is probably the reason there aren't more of them. Generally they fall into the trap of expanding material that sits well in a half-hour slot but when stretched to feature length comes out as interminable even for the fans. "The Inbetweeners Movie" is a classic example of how not to do it. I must admit I approached the 1969 film of "Till Death do us Part" with some trepidation on this score only to finish up with more than a degree of pleasant surprise. Norman Cohen's Alf Garnett saga works well for the very reason it is just that - a saga spanning the second world war before hopping on twenty years. It crams in a tremendous amount, sometimes almost too much. A lengthy sequence in which Alf and his "Scouse git" son-in-law drunkenly attend Britain's World Cup victory seems just an excuse for including some archive newsreel footage. And then there are those monologues such as Alf's church prayer for salvation against being re-housed and his acceptance in a dream of an honour bestowed by "Her Gracious Majesty" that have a silliness bordering on the embarrassing. Not so two deliriously funny sequences, one where the old "moo" joins in a sing-song in a London underground shelter during the blitz, another a riotously drunken wedding celebration that has the energy one finds in the best of Fellini and Ford. Quite some achievement! But possibly the most memorable feature of "Till Death do us Part" is its re-creation of those dusty East End streets during the dark days of the war. In such scenes the film touches on the special.

Introducing the background to the television series, this film starts just before the War with Alf Garnett recently married and living in an attached house in the East End. Then it switches to the contemporary era, the world cup match in 1964 and the councils decision to demolish the house and move them to a high rise in Essex.----------- I'd just like to point out a few factual errors promoted by Speight :The housing in the east end demolished by Wilson was of very poor quality and in many cases falling down. It was poorly made in the first place and the east end was one of the most heavily bombed areas in the War. Garnett has an outside flush toilet but many houses only had a "short drop" toilet and relied on a nightcart service. When the Thames valley flooded in the early 1960s, there was a big outbreak of Tyhoid fever - this is when it was decided to demolish the area.Speight has Garnett travelling long periods to work - in fact the container port was moved to Folkestone after the building of the Thames barrage (the bulk port had moved decades before) as the large ships could not enter so there was very little employment in the area.While its technically true about the high rise (they were an elderly couple and the children were not on the lease but sponging), families were given semis not flats so the story is misleading.

No sooner had the television version of Johnny Speight's controversial B.B.C. sitcom ended - temporarily, as it turned out - than the cast reunited for this feature film spin-off. Interestingly, it sets itself up as a prequel, initially featuring Alf and Else in London's East End during the Forties. We see Alf here as an eccentric patriot, rather than the tyrant bigot he became. Over news reel footage of Nazi tanks he boasts that Hitler is too scared to go to war with Britain. But it happens, and suddenly he is terrified. He believes it won't last long though. His patriotism vanishes the day the call-up papers land on his doormat. The attention to period detail here is marvellous; rationing books, air-raid shelters, doom-filled radio broadcasts, they're all here. Much to his disgust, soldiers are tucking into bacon and eggs while he has to make do with spam. The pub runs out of beer, and Alf cannot fill his pipe with tobacco. Though he manages to stay out of the army by being in a reserved occupation, he has other problems to contend with - Else is pregnant. The second part takes us to 1966; mini-skirts are in fashion, and Alf comes into conflict with his trendy lefty daughter Rita and her 'Scouse git' boyfriend Mike Rawlins. Alf won't let her put 'Vote Labour' posters in his window. This section is not as good as the first, but it is nice to see the circumstances that brought the characters together. There is a hilarious scene at Rita's wedding reception when Alf gets into a fight with Mike's father, a devout Catholic. Amongst the cast is future 'On The Buses' stars Michael Robbins and Bob Grant ( even though the latter has no lines ). Norman Cohen must have liked working in the wartime period as he went on to direct the film version of 'Dad's Army' and 'Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall', based on Spike Milligan's memoirs. Bill Maynard plays 'Bert', Alf's next door neighbour, with whom he conducts conversations whilst on the toilet ( how well I remember outside bogs. Ugh! Cold! ). It is impossible not to feel sorry for Alf as he walks up the street where he has lived for years, now deserted. For many people, this was a reality. Hitler could not destroy the street, but the local council did. The movie ends where it began - in a cinema - with Alf standing as the National Anthem plays, everyone else having gone home.Released in America under the title 'Alf 'n Family' ( presumably to capitalise on the connection with 'All In The Family' ), it was so successful it opened the floodgates for other sitcom-based films such as 'On The Buses' and 'Dad's Army'. A sequel - 'The Alf Garnett Saga' - was made three years later, but it was not a patch on the first.

One of the first television situation comedies to get the cinema treatment, 'Till Death…' avoids the trap of being just an extended television episode which befalls many other adoptions, by opening out the story. It is more a prequel than merely being the 'film of the show', showing us the history of the Garnett family, from just before the start of the Second World War to the 'present day' of 1969, taking in the 1966 World Cup on it's way.It is the wartime sequence of the movie (it roughly takes up the first 45 minutes of the film) which for me is the highlight of the picture. You really do get a proper sense of time and place. The credit mainly goes to the director, Norman Cohen, who gives what could have been a static television-style play, a real cinematic treatment.The script by Johnny Speight is generally excellent and (as far as I know) isn't just a re-packaging of old television material. Ironically the movie falters when it moves 'twenty or so years later' and moves into the more familiar setting of the series That said, Rita's wedding is a memorable set-piece, moving between drama and comedy (and very uncomfortable viewing at times, due to Garnett's racism). It's Mitchell's movie, of course. It's a credit to the actor's talents that that you can't help liking Alf, despite the fact that Speight's script constantly under-cuts and mocks the character.It's an oddly bitter-sweet movie, as a community which had survived the Blitz is eventually disbanded, with the Garnett family exiled to a bleak modern concrete tower block. There is a real sense of loss here and it is this which places it a few notches up from the normal television spin-off. It's a pity that this movie will always be over-shadowed by its more controversial small screen incarnation, as it deserves a wider audience. It also showcases a rather brilliant title song, by Ray Davies, which any fan of The Kinks should check out.