Main Cast: Ronnie Corbett, Beryl Reid, Arthur Lowe
Release Year: 1975
Country: UK
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
This bedroom farce seems better suited to a suburban dinner theatre than the Big Screen, but everyone involved strives to please, and often as not they succeed. The plot hinges upon a misdelivered parcel of pornographic postcards, which end up in the hands of a staid banker and his frigid wife. By the middle of the film (read: Act Two), everyone is being mistaken for someone else. By the end (Act Three), the leading characters have dropped their trousers or lost their dresses. No Sex Please, We're British began life as a stage play by Anthony Marriot and Alistair Foot, which ran for years in London--mostly as a tourist attraction for easily entertained Americans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Michael Bates - Needham; Deryck Guyler; Valerie Leon - Susan; Margaret Nolan - Barbara; Ian Ogilvy - David Hunter; Susan Penhaligon - Penny Hunter; Michael Robbins; Gerald Sim; David Swift; Cheryl Hall
Credit
Cliff Owen - Director, Ralph Kemplen - Editor, Eric Rogers - Composer (Music Score), Ray Simm - Production Designer, Ken Hodges - Cinematographer, John R. Sloan - Producer, John Mortimer - Screenwriter, Brian Cooke - Screenwriter, Anthony Marriott - Screenwriter, Anthony Marriott - Play Author, Alistair Foot - Play Author
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No Sex Please, We're British is a Britishcomedic play written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott and first staged in London's West End in 1971. It was unanimously panned by critics, but still ran for nearly a decade to packed audiences. It did not share the same success with American audiences, running for only 16 performances on Broadway in early 1973.
The farce surrounds an assistant bank manager, Peter Hunter, who lives above his bank with his new bride Frances. When Frances innocently sends a mail order off for some Scandinavian glassware, what comes back is Scandinavian pornography. The two, along with the bank's frantic chief cashier Brian Runnicles, must decide what to do with the veritable floods of pornography, photographs, books, films and eventually girls that threaten to engulf this happy couple. The matter is considerably complicated by the presence of Eleanor (Peter's mother), Mr. Bromhead (his boss), Mr. Needham (a visiting bank inspector), and Vernon Paul (a police superintendent).
A film version starring Ronnie Corbett as Brian was made in 1973. There were many alterations to the script, including significant changes in dialogue, plot elements and, most notably, to names: "Eleanor" was changed to "Bertha", "Mr. Bromhead" was changed to "Mr. Bromley", and "Peter" and "Frances" became "David" and "Penny", respectively. Michael Crawford, who played the role of Brian Runnicles on stage, turned down the movie version.
