Best of British Films

[zocco]

If they are classics the word needs to be redefined. Not one of them could touch the feet of an Ealing comedy. Puerile, smutty, sexist and hopeless.

Sorry.

who is ealing

yes the carry on movies were sexist and smutty but people can still laugh with them to this day

[GroobySteven]

If they are classics the word needs to be redefined. Not one of them could touch the feet of an Ealing comedy. Puerile, smutty, sexist and hopeless.

Sorry.

Disagree. Different times and different movies. The Carry On movies were classics of their genre and for better or worse, like Python helped define British comedy to what it is. I believe many of the Ealing comedies were classed as "smutty" in their day (Alastair Sim cross-dressed?).

[Dino Velvet]

We really enjoy Monty Python over here. When I was in high school I used to watch Benny Hill. Do/Did you guys like him over there?

[zocco]

We really enjoy Monty Python over here. When I was in high school I used to watch Benny Hill. Do/Did you guys like him over there?

In Australia we watced many Britis comedies on TV
Benny Hill,On The Busses,Are You Being Served,Dick Emory and many more
yes many were smutty and politically incorrect but very funny some still hold up today which IMO defines them as classics

[Stavros]

We really enjoy Monty Python over here. When I was in high school I used to watch Benny Hill. Do/Did you guys like him over there?

Benny Hill's tv show died at a time when the public lost interest in shows in which women were for the most part semi-naked and keen to have sex even with someone who looked like him; much as beauty pageants disappeared from mainstream tv. But if this suggests that Benny Hill was seen as past his sell-by date as far as attitudes to women is concerned, if you look at his shows politically, he comes across as an anarchist who took a particular delight in undermining the authority of, for example, policemen, judges and politicians. For this reason, the left-wing MP at the time, Tony Benn, declared Hill his favourite comedian; for many others Monty Python was too abstract and too clever. There has always been a good dose of smut in British comedy, as well as the intellectual. Comedians have emerged from both working class backgrounds, and from Universities; or perhaps one is street-wise humour and the other satire...?

[Dino Velvet]

Benny Hill's tv show died at a time when the public lost interest in shows in which women were for the most part semi-naked and keen to have sex even with someone who looked like him; much as beauty pageants disappeared from mainstream tv. But if this suggests that Benny Hill was seen as past his sell-by date as far as attitudes to women is concerned, if you look at his shows politically, he comes across as an anarchist who took a particular delight in undermining the authority of, for example, policemen, judges and politicians. For this reason, the left-wing MP at the time, Tony Benn, declared Hill his favourite comedian; for many others Monty Python was too abstract and too clever. There has always been a good dose of smut in British comedy, as well as the intellectual. Comedians have emerged from both working class backgrounds, and from Universities; or perhaps one is street-wise humour and the other satire...?

Good post. Haven't watched Benny Hill in years but I never missed it when it was popular on TV here. He definitely was irreverent and politically incorrect.

[mattavs1]

If you think Ken Loach is po-faced (as one of the commentators here did) you ought to try Riff-Raff, Ricky Tomlinson is fantastic. Is Excalibur classed as British? One of my favourite films as a kid.