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	~~{{Short description\|1973 British film by Ray Cooney and David Croft}}~~
	{{for\|the play\|Not Now, Darling}}		{{for\|the play\|Not Now, Darling}}
	~~{{Use dmy dates\|date=June 2016}}~~
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	~~{{1970s-UK-comedy-film-stub}}~~

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WP:STUBSPACING followup

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{{Short description|1973 British film by Ray Cooney and David Croft}}
{{for|the play|Not Now, Darling}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2016}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Not Now, Darling
| image = Not Now, Darling quad poster.jpg
| caption = Original theatrical release poster
| director = {{ubl|[[Ray Cooney]]|[[David Croft (TV producer)|David Croft]]}}
| producer =
| writer = {{ubl|[[John Chapman (screenwriter)|John Chapman]]|Ray Cooney}}
| starring = {{ubl|[[Leslie Phillips]]|Ray Cooney|[[Julie Ege]]|[[Bill Fraser]]|[[Moira Lister]]|[[Derren Nesbitt]]|[[Joan Sims]]|[[Barbara Windsor]]|[[Jack Hulbert]]|[[Cicely Courtneidge]]}}
| music = [[Cyril Ornadel]]
| cinematography = {{ubl|[[Alan Hume]]|[[John Rook]]}}
| editing = [[Peter Thornton (editor)|Peter Thornton]]
| distributor = {{ubl|LMG Film Productions|[[Dimension Pictures (1970s company)|Dimension Pictures]]}}
| released = {{Film date|df=yes|1973}}
| runtime = 97 minutes
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| budget =
}}

'''''Not Now, Darling''''' is a 1973 British [[comedy film]] directed by [[Ray Cooney]] and [[David Croft (TV producer)|David Croft]] and starring Trudi Van Doorn, [[Leslie Phillips]] and [[Julie Ege]].<ref name="BFIsearch">{{Cite web |title=Not Tonight, Darling |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150242730 |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}</ref> It was adapted from the 1967 [[Not Now, Darling|play of the same title]] by [[John Chapman (screenwriter)|John Chapman]] and [[Ray Cooney]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b74e3e2e2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426152240/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b74e3e2e2|url-status=dead|archive-date=26 April 2020|title=Not Now Darling (1972)|website=BFI}}</ref> The film is a [[farce]] centred on a shop in London that sells fur coats. A loosely related sequel ''[[Not Now, Comrade]]'' was released in 1976.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b1bbc35|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171002210041/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b1bbc35|url-status=dead|archive-date=2 October 2017|title=Not Now, Comrade (1976)|website=BFI}}</ref>

It was the last film to feature appearances by [[Cicely Courtneidge]] and [[Jack Hulbert]] who had been a leading celebrity couple in the 1930s and 1940s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/462553/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Courtneidge, Cicely (1893-1980) Biography|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}}</ref>

==Plot==
Gilbert Bodley plans to sell an expensive mink to mobster Harry McMichaell, cheaply, for his wife Janie. Janie is Gilbert's mistress, and Gilbert wants to close the deal. However, instead of doing his own dirty work, he gets his reluctant partner Arnold Crouch to do it for him. Things go awry when Harry plans to buy the same coat for his own mistress, Sue Lawson, and the whole plan fails.

==Cast==
* Trudi Van Doorn as Miss Whittington
* [[Leslie Phillips]] as Gilbert Bodley
* [[Julie Ege]] as Janie McMichael
* [[Joan Sims]] as Miss Ambrosine Tipdale
* [[Derren Nesbitt]] as Harry McMichael
* [[Ray Cooney]] as Arnold Crouch
* [[Bill Fraser]] as commissionaire
* [[Jack Hulbert]] as Commander George Frencham
* [[Cicely Courtneidge]] as Mrs Harriet Frencham
* [[Barbara Windsor]] as Sue Lawson
* [[Moira Lister]] as Maude Bodley
* [[Jackie Pallo]] as Mr Lawson
* [[Peter Butterworth]] as painter (uncredited)
* [[Graham Stark]] as painter (uncredited)

== Critical reception ==
''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' wrote: "''Not Now, Darling'' is one of the first cinema films to employ the Multivista system, which – by electronically linking a number of cameras to screens from which the director can select the image he wants – enables shooting and editing to take place simultaneously. It's a system which ideally suited to the filming of stage performances, a way of breaking up long sequences in confined settings; but in the case of ''Not Now Darling'' its advantages (other than economic ones) are hardly apparent. Minimally adapted for the screen from a [[West End theatre|West End]] play and with the bulk of its action still set in the furrier's showroom, the film retains the stock ingredients of stage farce: hairbreadth exits and entrances, mistaken identity, characters talking at cross purposes and indulging in prolonged double entendre on such subjects as Barbara Windsor's tits ("You know, birds"). Already weighted down by this level of verbal invention, the flow of the action is further broken by the directors' repetitive habit of employing close-ups for every punchline; and the original sense of accumulating chaos, fostered in part by the monotony of a stalls-eye-view, is here entirely dissipated. Even such experienced comic actors as Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims are unable, in the circumstances, to inject any pace into the proceedings"<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1973 |title=Not Now, Darling |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305833812/8CF344A5011A4D0DPQ/1 |journal=[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]] |volume=40 |issue=468 |pages=105 |via=ProQuest}}</ref>

''The [[Radio Times]] Guide to Films'' gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "What an appalling waste of a remarkable cast that provides a comic link between the golden age of music hall and the ''[[Carry On (franchise)|Carry On]]''s. Popular 1930s husband-and-wife team Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge were reunited on screen for the first time in 12 years for this clumsy version of Ray Cooney's long-running West End farce. Leslie Phillips holds this threadbare piece together, as the furrier up to his neck in girlfriends and cheap minks, but it's all rather tatty."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=[[Immediate Media Company]] |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=671}}</ref>
{{void}}
British film critic [[Leslie Halliwell]] said: "Interminable film version (in Multivista, a shoot-and-edit equivalent to TV taping which gives a dingy look and can only work in a single set) of a West End farce which wasn't marvellous to begin with."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Halliwell |first=Leslie |title=Halliwell's Film Guide |publisher=Paladin |year=1989 |isbn=0586088946 |edition=7th |location=London |pages=741}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|70459|Not Now, Darling}}
* {{Amg movie|127864|Not Now, Darling}}
* {{ibdb title|3093|Not Now, Darling}}
* {{British Comedy Guide|film|not_now_darling|Not Now, Darling}}
* [https://www.reelstreets.com/films/not-now-darling/ ''Not Now, Darling''] then-and-now location photographs at [https://www.reelstreets.com/ ReelStreets]

[[Category:1973 films]]
[[Category:1973 comedy films]]
[[Category:British comedy films]]
[[Category:Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios]]
[[Category:British films based on plays]]
[[Category:Films based on works by Ray Cooney]]
[[Category:Films set in England]]
[[Category:Films set in London]]
[[Category:Dimension Pictures films]]
[[Category:1970s English-language films]]
[[Category:1970s British films]]

{{1970s-UK-comedy-film-stub}}

Not Now, Darling (film) - Revision history

Kurt at 16:46, 14 September 2024

Kurt at 23:43, 10 September 2024

Kurt: 1 revision imported

en>Tom.Reding: WP:STUBSPACING followup