Rising Damp (film)
Rising Damp is definitely in my top 5 of all time sitcoms, it's dingy setting and bleak looking boarding house was different to all those middle class sitcoms that were set in suburbia, where everyone has nice house and cars and money never seemed to be an issue except in The Good Life, but they deserved it with all there pompous self suffiency and grow your own vegetables. In amongst the hilarity Rising Damp dealt with race,money,sex or lack of it and a country that was in a political meltdown. Rupert Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) was the slightly right wing compared to Alan Guy Moore (Richard Beckinsale) and Philip Smith (Don Warrington) left wing students, but Rigsby views were derived from ignorance and not malice and he never came across as a hateful character which could not be said of the same of Alf Garnet . In fact a lot of the time you usually feel sorry for Rigsby as he desperately tries to win the affection of Ruth Jones (Frances de la Tour) but seldom manages to win her affection, or when she does submit at the end of the film , Rigsby manages to trip over Vienna his fluffy cat and falls down the stairs ,there goes his back. The film version of the series not only changes location, TV series was up north the film down south. The other major difference is the sad loss of Richard Beckinsale who sadly passed away a year earlier in 1979. Whether he was contracted to make the film before he died I don't know, It seemed strange to decide to make a movie after one of the major actors had died. Any how his character is replaced by John Harris ( Christopher Strauli) who is basically given the same lines Richard had in the tv series, I'm afraid the major problem with the film is that all Eric Chappell has done is string about four or five tv episodes into one film, there's a few original set pieces in the film but a few to many ,its a real shame they could not of come up with something new for the characters to do. That said the cast are on fine form and Leonard Rossiter is a much missed comedy actor, there's also a great performance from Denholm Elliott as a love rival to Rigsby.Not as good as the tv show but a decent enough attempt at bring the characters to the large screen.
out of 5
Rigsby: Permissive society? There's no such thing. I should know I've looked for it.
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