On The Buses The Film.
Its safe to say I luv the 70s,the culture,the music,the films
even the styles.
Of course it was not perfect,high unemployment,
Racial unrest,Fuel shortages,power blackouts and the Sweeney knocking
over convenient placed cardboard boxes.
But it also gave us some of the best music ever from T Rex to
David Bowie to the rise of punk.
Also British television was at its most proliferate,both ITV and
the BBC were churning out sitcoms left, right and centre.At a guess
id say majority of the most successful sitcoms came from this golden age
of television.
Did they actually realistically portray the real England of 1970s,depending
on your political view point it was the worst of the times and the best of
times.
Most of the more popular sitcoms have been held up as examples of poor
taste and political in correctness.
Are You Being Served,portrayal of homosexuals and the sexist behavior
towards women,Aint Have Hot MUm,for its portrayal of Asians.Love Thy Neighbor for its obvious racist main protagonist and how he treats his neighbor.Rising Damp again
for racism.And the list goes on,I imagine thier were probably more that have
now been lost in the mist of time.
Now im not defending racism or treating women in a demeaning way,but I don't
think that we can censorship things retrospectively,especially when it reflects
a whole period of Britain,You just can't sweep it under the carpet and forget
that it ever happened.
On the Buses has everything ,lecherous men,women in ill fitting tight mini skirts,
bad haircuts,bad teeth and some of the worst fashion mistakes ever put on celluloid.
Im not that big a fan of the actual tv series,like most long running series it does tend to run out of steam early and just pretty much repeat the same gags over and over again.
Where the films win is that they manage to take all the great element,the likeable characters and condense it into 90mins of pure 70s fun.Now they were never gonna win any
oscars but they do give an almost innocent slice of England back in the mid 70s.
It falls somewhere between Children's Film Foundation and The confessions movies with
Robin Askwith with a touch of Public Information films whenever a double Decker bus comes into view.
The main thrust of any of the Buses films is Stan and Jack trying to get of with women,or if you want the 70s term BIRDS,
Also what sets the On the Buses movies apart from other TV to film sitcoms is that on the whole they were pretty well made,they looked like films and not over long TV episodes,which The Rising damp film suffers from,its just basically three TV episodes
strung together,that and the unfortunate loss of Richard Beckinsale really hampers what could of been a great TV adaptation.

Harry Booth does a great job directing this Mutiny on the Buses and Holiday On The buses,lets be honest
it was probably a thankless job,but hey it still made money.
Of course they have dated,times have changed (not necessarily for the better) and alot
of things that were said back in the 70's on TV shows are pretty reprehensible,theirs no excuse in calling a black character Chalkie for example,which happened in the TV show.
But luckily the three films are fairly innocent by today's standards,and still funny in a juvenile way.Look I know some people hate them and that whole period,but what would you rather have Keith Lemon or Reg Varney.
I know which bus Im getting on.DING DING room for one more
on top.