BY TIM GREAVES
You
always knew that porridge oats ranked among the world’s sexiest foodstuffs,
didn't you? You didn't? Neither did
advertising executive Teddy Brown, tasked with devising a promotional campaign
to 'sex up' under-performing breakfast product ‘McLaughlin's Frozen Porridge’
in risqué romp Every Home Should Have One
(1970, U.S.: Think Dirty). This
neglected gem has just been given a new breath of life in the UK via a
sparkling Blu-ray and DVD release, a constituent of Network Distributing's
ongoing British Film Collection.
Co-written
by Marty Feldman (who also stars), Barry Took and Denis Norden, Every Home Should Have One delights in
taking a swipe at not only the absurd and superficial nature of the advertising
profession but also the hypocrisy of our self-imposed moral guardians (both
still valid targets 45 years on, I'd proffer), and the pitfalls of adopting a
permissive lifestyle. But most rewarding of all it gives bug-eyed, chaotic-haired
comic Feldman a free canvas to do his thing – and he delivers the funnies in
spades.
The
kernel of the tale concerns the life of ad man Teddy Brown (Marty Feldman).
Professionally he's struggling to come up with a sales idea that will please
both his boss (Shelley Berman) – whose own dismal ideas include giving away
free plastic sporrans – and their client (Jack Watson), a no-nonsense Scot.
Privately he's having to deal with his wife Liz (Judy Cornwell) joining a
‘Clean Up TV’ crusade presided over by the local Vicar (Dinsdale Landen). The
Vicar happens to have lascivious designs
on Liz, and their kleptomaniac son (Garry Miller) who, spurred by a TV play
entitled ‘The Fetish’, has developed hobbies that include purloining the
panties of the family’s string of au pairs (among them Julie Ege), which he squirrels
away between the pages of his stamp album.
Every Home Should
Have One
was produced by Ned Sherrin (also producer on such big screen rib-ticklers as The Virgin Soldiers and Frankie Howerd's
ribald Up trilogy) and directed by
Jim Clark (who two years on helmed Rentadick
– also produced by Sherrin and featuring Ege – but was better known for his
skills in the editing room; he scooped the Oscar for his work on The Killing Fields and brought his
expertise to The Mission, Charade, Agatha, Marathon Man and
Brosnan Bond thriller The World is Not
Enough, to name but a few).
Feldman's
garish couture might have dated the film a shade, but there’s still a lot of
fun to be found here, the plenteous smiles – it seldom evokes belly laughs –
proportionate, I’d suggest, to how much you like Feldman. He certainly had a Marmite
effect on audiences. For this writer's money, regardless of the fine assembly
of players backing him up (beyond those already namechecked there are terrific
turns from Francis de la Tour, Penelope Keith, Patrick Cargill, and an
uncredited Alan Bennett), Feldman is the crazy-glue who holds the movie
together. He effortlessly steals the show, at his most amusing in a clutch of Billy Liar-esque fantasy sequences which
pitch him into a horror film (as a voracious vampire), a black-and-white silent
movie, a sepia-tinted peepshow loop, a Swedish arthouse film and a zany
animation (graphics courtesy of Richard Williams, later-to-be titles animator
on several Pink Panther movies and
animation director on Who Framed Roger
Rabbit).
Network's
Blu-Ray release comes highly recommended, delivering a colourful 1.66:1
presentation of the film with nary a trace of grain, its picture so clean that your eye is frequently
distracted by faddish 70s set dressing (such as the toy Captain Scarlet vehicle on the sideboard in the Brown household)
and minutiae like the nicotine stains on Feldman's fingers. The bonus materials
comprise an image gallery (which collects together a selection of lobby cards
and poster art), a trailer, a sans-subtitles replay of the Feldman/Ege arthouse
movie sketch and some original release promotional material in PDF format. Also
available on standard definition DVD.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER