Steptoe and Son

Steptoe and Son is a 1972 British comedy drama film and a spin-off from the popular British television comedy series of the same name about a pair of rag and bone men. It starred Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the eponymous characters, Albert and Harold Steptoe respectively. It also features Carolyn Seymour.

Plot

During a gentlemen's evening at a local football club, Harold meets one of the acts, a stripper called Zita. After a whirlwind romance the couple are married, although the actual wedding ceremony is delayed when Albert, acting as best man, loses the ring somewhere in the yard. They eventually find it in a pile of horse manure, and since they have no time to clean up their arrival in church is met with looks of disgust.

Harold and Zita fly to Spain for their honeymoon, but Albert refuses to be left behind. This causes Harold considerable frustration and begins to drive a wedge between him and Zita. When they are finally left alone and are beginning to consummate their marriage they are interrupted by Albert's cries of distress from the adjoining room, and discover that he has contracted food poisoning from some of the local cuisine.

Harold is forced to fly home with Albert, leaving Zita in Spain. Back home Albert makes a suspiciously fast recovery while Harold waits for Zita to write. When he finally receives a letter from her, the news is not what he had hoped for; after trying unsuccessfully for several days to get a plane back to England she has taken up with a British holiday rep at the Spanish hotel. Harold is heartbroken, and, despite his earlier scheming to get rid of Zita, Albert is genuinely sympathetic.

On meeting Zita again some months later Harold finds that she is pregnant but does not know who the baby's father is. Harold offers to take care of them both, but on returning home Albert makes sure that Zita feels unwelcome and she flees. A short while later a baby appears in the horse's stable. This scene parodies the Nativity, with the Three Wise Men bearing gifts replaced by three tramps selling rags, and the Star of Bethlehem being represented by the lights of an airliner.

It appears that the child is Zita's. They name the child after the priest who officiates the christening. Unfortunately for Harold, he is also called Albert. Harold compromises by naming him Albert Jeremy and calling him Jeremy thereafter, although Albert Sr. insists on calling him Albert.

Zita apparently returns and takes the baby back while Albert, who should be looking after him, is asleep. Harold tries to find her and comes across her in a local rugby club where she is soon forced into the scrum of cheering rugby fans. Attempting to save her, Harold is beaten up and is only rescued when Zita's musician saves him. Hustled into a back room he hears a baby's cries but when he pulls back a curtain a mixed-race baby is there instead. It turns out that Zita and her musician, who is black, are a couple. As Harold says at the end to his father "That one wasn't mine either".

Cast

• Wilfrid Brambell .... Albert Steptoe
• Harry H. Corbett .... Harold Steptoe
• Carolyn Seymour .... Zita
• Arthur Howard .... Vicar
• Victor Maddern .... Chauffeur
• Fred Griffiths .... Barman
• Joan Heath .... Zita's mother
• Fred McNaughton .... Zita's father
• Lon Satton .... Pianist
• Patrick Fyffe .... Arthur (as Perri St. Claire)
• Patsy Smart .... Mrs. Hobbs
• Mike Reid .... Compere
• Alec Mango .... Hotel Doctor
• Michael Da Costa .... Hotel Manager
• Enys Box .... Traffic Warden

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (March 2009)

• The late EastEnders actor and comedian Mike Reid makes an early appearance.
• Carolyn Seymour, who plays Zita, went on to play Abby Grant in the first series of Terry Nation's apocalyptic BBC drama series Survivors in 1975 and has gone on to have a successful Hollywood career, most notably as a Romulan in Star Trek.
• Arthur the drag queen friend of Zita's was played by Patrick Fyffe who later had a successful career known as Dame Hilda Bracket of Hinge and Bracket.
• A brief excerpt from Richard Hittleman's Yoga for Health is seen on the Steptoes' television set. The programme was a staple of ITV's daytime schedule in the 1970s.

External links

• Steptoe and Son at the Internet Movie Database

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