Films #086 & #087 - Up Pompeii (1971) & Up the Chastity Belt (1971)
When the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum crossed the Atlantic, the lead role of Pseudolus (originated by Zero Mostel) went to British comedian Frankie Howerd. After re-fashioning the role to fit his cheeky sense of humor, it was a huge success for him. In 1969, in an effort to recapture the success of that role, Howerd starred in a sitcom entitled Up Pompeii, which cast him (as in Forum) as a slave to a wealthy family in Roman times. The two series of the show were quite successful and led to a film adaptation, also entitled Up Pompeii in 1971.
The basic premise was retained: slave Lurcio (Howerd) works for Senator Ludicrus Sextus (Michael Hordern) and his wife, Ammonia (Barbara Murray) while trying to help their two children, Nausius (Royce Mills) and Erotica (Madeline Smith). The film focuses on the events leading up to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, as factions against Emperor Nero (Patrick Cargill) try to take over the Empire.
First of all, with the exception of Howerd, the entire primary cast from the TV series was replaced. Michael Hordern is more than capable of taking over the role of Ludicrus from the two original actors, Max Adrian and Wallas Eaton. The role is essentially the same as Senex, the part he had played in the stage and silm versions of Forum. Of all the replacements, he’s the strongest. Barbara Murray is a passable Ammonia, but just doesn’t carry off the sense of inner dignity that Elizabeth Larner brought to the role (which made her various indelicacies all the funnier). Royce Mills, also, is a fairly good Nausius, but just isn’t as strong a personality as Kerry Gardner. Madeline Smith, on the other hand, is much more vivacious (and nude) than Georgina Moon ever was, but gets so little screentime that her version of Erotica never comes across (get it?) as anything other than a slut.
The story is all right, I suppose, but suprisingly doesn’t have as much of Howerd tounge-in-cheek humor as I expected. It’s there, all right, but something about being shot on film, as compared to the TV shows’s videotape, takes away the immediacy. On the show, Howerd would often engage in banter with the audience and it just doesn’t work here.
The new characters also lack coherance. Nero is little more than a generic Emperor, with only a mention of his plans for Rome to distinguish him from any other. Lurcio’s love interest Scrubba (Adrienne Posta) is just there for a bit of fluff. The primary villain, Prosperus Maximus (Bill Fraser) is just a carboard cut-out villain, snarling his way through the film and his right-hand man, Bilius (Lance Percival), is just a typical screw-up. Nothing terribly original.
There are a few good jokes and most of the cast is at least trying, but ultimately, it fails to live up to the series that inspired it.
The follow-up, however, would be a different story. Using an idea that would later be re-used with the Blackadder series, the writers and producers took the basic setup of Up Pompeii and moved the action to the middle ages in Up the Chastity Belt.
This time, Howerd plays Lurkalot, a serf in service to Sir Coward de Custard (Graham Crowden) and his wife Lady Ashfodel (Anna Quayle) and helps their two children, Knotweed (Royce Mills again) and Lobelia (Anne Ashton). The heavy, Sir Braggart de Bombast, is again played by Bill Fraser and his sidekick, Sir Grumbell de Grunt, is played by Darth Vader, himself, David Prowse.
And that’s really where the similarity ends. One of the reasons that Chastity Belt works better than the film version of Pompeii is that it is freed from any kind of reliance on a previous production. Therefore, characters can range in any direction the filmmaker’s desired, instead of being stuck in molds intended for someone else. So Sir Coward may be an old fuddy-duddy, he’s not simply a renamed Ludicrus. Also, Chastity Belt piles on new characters, including Robin Hood (Hugh Paddick), Richard the Lionheart (Howerd in a dual role), Saladin (Derek Griffiths) and my favorite, Scheherazade, played by the inimitable Eartha Kitt. *
The story is truly epic, as it carries from the fields of England and Sir Coward’s struggle against the machinations of Sir Braggart all the way to the Crusades, where King Richard is languishing in a way quite different from what the folks back home are expecting (the Crusades are apparently just one big love-in thrown by Saladin) and back to England again as Lurkalot, Robin Hood and crew try to restore King Richard to the throne. Whew!
Despite all these goings-on, the story is very well balanced. Time is given to get to know all the characters and, unlike many a wacky comedy of today, though jokes fly fast and furious, they never seem scattershot or thrown in for the sake of it.
Everyone in the cast is great. Howerd, of course, carries the film and is very sympathetic as Lurkalot and also very funny as the bored, sex-obsessed King Richard. (They were separated at birth, you see.) Crowden is able to instill Sir Coward with real personality, as does Quayle with lady Ashfodel. More than just pale imitations, these are fully rounded characters. The same holds true for Knotweed and Sir Braggart, who both are given a lot more peronality than their equivalents in Pompeii. In fact, the only character who doesn’t get a significant upgrade from the previous film is Lobelia, who is hardly more defined than Erotica. But Lobelia, at least, is given a central part in the plot (her chastity belt prevents Sir Braggart’s plans from *ahem* coming to fruition) and seems like a nice girl, even if she does “get around”.
Also worthy of note are a few of the supporting players. Derek Griffiths performs Saladin as a stright-up parody of Sammy Davis, Jr. and it works beautifully for the “harem party” setup at the Crusades. Hugh Paddick plays Robin Hood as a “poofdah”, as they used to say and his “Merry Men” argue over things like who caused a rip in one of their tights. But Eatha Kitt steals her few scenes as Scheherazade, paired up as a bed partner with King Richard. Her scenes, though understated are amazingly erotic, something, no doubt, that she brings to the screen, because there’s little in the script that would indicate it. She’s still funny when necessary and does a great job with the theme song, “A Knight for my Nights”.
In just about every way Up the Chastity Belt improves on Up Pompeii. It is a much more worthy successor to the TV series and stands well on its own. (No previous knowledge of Up Pompeii is necessary.) I would go so far as to say that it holds up well against any period comedy of the day, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (It doesn’t reach those levels, of course, but it’s also not that far removed.) So, while fans of the Up Pompeii television series or Frankie Howerd will most likely want to check out both films (and the subesquent entries in this loose series of projects), for non-fans, I can only truly recommend Up the Chastity Belt.
* Just a quick list of other notables you can spot in Up the Chstisty Belt: David Battley (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Rutland Weekend Television), Frank Thornton (Are You Being Served?, Last of the Summer Wine), Rita Webb (Benny Hill) and Christopher Timothy (All Creatures Great and Small).