George and Mildred (film)

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George and Mildred
George and Mildred (1980 film).jpg
British quad poster by Tom Beauvais
Directed byPeter Frazer Jones
Written byDick Sharples
Based onGeorge and Mildred
by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke
Produced byRoy Skeggs
Starring
CinematographyFrank Watts
Edited byPeter Weatherley
Music byLes Reed
Production
companies
  • Chips Productions
  • Cinema Arts International Production
Distributed byITC Film Distributors
Release date
27 July 1980
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

George and Mildred is a 1980 British comedy film directed by Peter Frazer Jones.[1] It was an adaptation of the television series of the same name, with Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy reprising their roles as the two title characters.[2] It was written by Dick Sharples.[1]

Synopsis

Mildred is keen to ascertain whether or not her husband George has remembered their 27th wedding anniversary. Needless to say, he has not. When he finally remembers, he books a table at the restaurant where he first proposed to Mildred. But to his horror, he discovers on arrival that it has been turned into a greasy spoon café run by Hells Angels style bikers. Mildred then decides that she and George will celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary in style at the plush, world famous London hotel - however unhappy George might be at the cost involved. But on arrival, George is mistaken for a ruthless hit-man by a shady businessman (Stratford Johns), who wants a rival eliminated.

Reception

Released on 27 July, less than a month before the death of star Yootha Joyce (who died on 24 August 1980), the film was neither a commercial nor a critical success.[3] One critic has described the film as "one of the worst films ever made in Britain . . . so strikingly bad, it seems to have been assembled with a genuine contempt for its audience."[4] A writer for The Guardian stated that the film's failure marked "the death knell" for the 1970s British practice of producing motion picture spinoffs based on sitcoms.[5] The film aired on television on Christmas Day 1980, only five months after its theatrical release.

Cast

References

  1. ^ a b "George and Mildred (1980)".
  2. ^ "George and Mildred (1980) - Peter Frazer Jones - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  3. ^ "From the Ab Fab movie to George & Mildred: the best (and worst) big screen Britcoms".
  4. ^ Julian Upton, "Carry On Sitcom: The British Sitcom Spin-off Film 1968-1980", [[Bright Lights Film Journal|]], no. 35 (January 2002).
  5. ^ Jon Bentham, "Funny money", The Guardian, 12 January 2006

External links