A Private Function

Rating:
Summary: A comedy about post-war rationing?
Review: A true lost-between-the-cracks comic gem. My friends and I have enjoyed this movie since we first saw it and finding good copies of it were difficult, to put it mildly. Although the DVD is skimpy, it's here, and damn reasonably priced, too.
Even with the DVD remaster, the sound is typically lousy (what IS it with the British...refuse to use German microphones?) and one almost has to turn the subtitles on to understand all the muffled dialog. Miking problems aside, "A Private Function" is a delightful, funny, occasionally crude comedy about class struggle in post-war Britain. A small "who's-who" of England's character actors make up the perfect cast of this film and all turn in splendid, low-key performances. Michael Palin, possibly the best "actor-actor" of the Monty Python troupe, is charming as the chiropodist who unwittingly stumbles unto the upper-middle-class via his female clientele, much to the delight of his social-aspiring, piano teacher wife, Maggie Smith.

Thank George Harrison's Handmade Films, without whom this, and many other films would have never been made, however low-budget and poorly-received they were. "A Private Function" may not grab you on the first viewing, but there's much to go back for on repeated viewings. And it gets funnier each time.
One warning: if you're at all squeamish about the butchering business (or piggie gastro-intestinal business), you may want to skip this one!

Rating:
Summary: Them's got cream cakes!
Review: A vivid and comic look at dour Britain in the early 50's, just as Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen) is about to get married. Local celebrations are hampered by food rationing - and a stolen pig becomes the centre of attention. Lizzie Smith as the old mum is brilliant, Richard Griffiths excellent (he is in "Withnail and I" too) and Dame Maggie Smith as Michael Palin's wife is just right.
Denholm Eliot, as a local bigwig, is a revelation. Buy it! Pity it's not on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Witty!
Review: Hysterically funny movie about social climbing and rationed pork during wwII. Written by comic talent Alan Bennet who has contributed greatly to screenplays these past 20 years.

Rating:
Summary: For certain tastes only, but good Brit fun
Review: It's all about the Princess and the Pig in this bleak black comedy, which takes place in war-rationed England, circa 1947. The princess, only in a peripheral story, is Elizabeth; and the pig, who takes front and center, is Betty, a sow who's being illegally fatted for slaughter. She gets a second chance at life when someone (Michael Palin) steals her. Very dark comedy, not for the light-hearted!

Staci Layne Wilson
Author of Staci's Guide to Animal Movies


Rating:
Summary: ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!
Review: Liz Smith, the old woman, stole the show but she didn't have it easy! The entire cast turned out brilliant individual performances. Even the pig! I had the buy the movie because I laughed so hard I missed some of the dialog. Great writing!....

Rating:
Summary: Clear transfer and great story....
Review: Michael Palin of Monty Python and 'Fish Called Wanda' fame teams up with Maggie Smith ('Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', 'Room With a View', 'Gosford Park') to form one of the most eccentric married couples in English history. To top it off, the couple live with her mother played by the acctress who portrays the eccentric female vestry member (always knitting and creating strange kitchen concoctions) in the 'Vicar of Dilby' series.

Palin is "foot doctor" who spends his days bicycling from house to house in post-War II Yorkshire tending to female patients. In his travels around and about he crosses paths with a syndicate of "business men" who are raising an illegal pig for a "private function" to be held the day the Princess Elizabeth (II) marries.

Following a farcical turn of events, Palin kidnaps the pig named "Betty" planned for the roast. Urged on by Smith's character (pure Maggie), the couple "keep" the pig in their bathroom and try to kill it. Soon enough, the syndicate members discover the kidnapping and are hot on the tail of the missing pig. In the meantime, a zealous copper is hot on their tails.

Other wonderful actors in this romp include Denholm Elliot ('Room With a View'), Alison Steadman ('Singing Dectective', 'Pride and Prejudice'), Pete Postlehwaite ('Name of the Father', 'Brassed Off') and other very familiar faces. An uplifting film, but not suitable for those who are weak of stomach.

Rating:
Summary: Great film.....Palin is great
Review: One of the coolest films i've seen Palin was great and it had a great supporting cast. If you think it is droll you havent lived!!!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly understated British comedy/mystery.
Review: This is one of my favorite movies. There is humor in almost every scene; there are so many nuances in this movie, that I've seen it over 20 times and still see something new each viewing. Each character has a distinct personality. It's just a very enjoyable film to watch, and I recommend it highly. It's a very clever movie.

Rating:
Summary: Oh! I am sorry.....She's seventy four !
Review: What a surprise that this perfect gem is not better known...such a loss. Britain during the early fifties had much to look forward to and much still to do. Everything was still rationed just as in the war years principally because the treasury was sacked to pay for the arms and munitions needed to fight it. The Empire (or what was left of it) was broke too and most that had not already done so went the autonomous route now, taking revenue away from London...though all quite peaceably and with everyone's best wishes. It would be ten years after the war ended (that makes roughly fourteen in all) until rationing would end for these isles, celebrated with the fantastic Festival of Britain in 1955, and people could at last look forward into a new Elizabethan age, rather than back on that darkness. My god Britain paid for that war in every way possible...really. What a period then to set a comedy I suppose...except that this particular story required those lean and austere times for the telling of it. Fresh meat you see...gammon, bacon, joints roasted and slavered with apple sauce...mouth watering! Imagine then the lengths you might go to for some of that after, let's say, eleven years of powdered egg.
Michael Palin as the hen pecked chiropodist, Maggie Smith as the social climbing hen, Liz Smith as the batty scatty mother-in law who'll stuff virtually anything and everything in her gannet gob, Denholm Eliot (as the doctor) who refuses to be impressed and so must be made so...along with everyone else in town who matters....I have never laughed so much. They are all that generation who would have been children (more or less) in this time period and all say how they never felt they went without....how they enjoyed their childhood's and wish it could be the same always...when you watch this you can see their point. This film and everyone's performance in it is superb. Please...for your good health and for your better and more cheerful disposition...buy this movie.