| Ooh… You Are Awful | |
|---|---|
 Spanish poster | |
| Directed by | Cliff Owen |
| Written by | John Warren John Singer |
| Produced by | E.M. Smedley-Aston Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder |
| Starring | Dick Emery Derren Nesbitt Ronald Fraser Cheryl Kennedy |
| Cinematography | Ernest Steward |
| Edited by | Bill Blunden |
| Music by | Christopher Gunning |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release date | 28 December 1972 |
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £201,443[1] |
| Box office | £267,173[1] |
Ooh... You Are Awful is a 1972 British comedy film directed by Cliff Owen and starring Dick Emery, Derren Nesbitt, Ronald Fraser and Cheryl Kennedy.[2] It is a feature-length adaptation of The Dick Emery Show. Its North American title was Get Charlie Tully.[3] It was Emery's sole starring vehicle.[4]
Plot
Conmen Charlie Tully and Reggie Peek have successfully conned a couple of Italian men, and are making an easy escape with £500,000. Flushed with success, Tully is unable to resist running a "quick and easy" con on a passing American tourist, but Tully is arrested. While Tully is imprisoned, Peek manages to escape and deposits the £500,000 in a Swiss bank account. Peek meets Tully on his release, intending to give him the bank account number. But Peek has been having an affair with the sister of London crime lord Sid Sabbath, and his reunion with Tully is cut short when Peek is murdered, on the orders of Sabbath.
Peek has left a record of the bank account number, tattooed on the bottoms of four young women. Tully adopts a range of disguises to track down each woman in turn to see her naked bottom.
Throughout, Tully is confronted by members of Sid Sabbath's gang, with orders to kill – only for them to mysteriously die themselves. Tully thinks he is "lucky", while Sabbath thinks Tully is a one-man army. Neither realise Tully is being secretly guarded by Italian gangsters.
Cast
- Dick Emery – Charlie Tully
- Derren Nesbitt – Sid Sabbath
- Ronald Fraser – Reggie Campbell Peek
- Pat Coombs – Libby Niven
- William Franklyn – Arnold Van Cleef
- Cheryl Kennedy – Jo Mason
- Norman Bird – Warder Burke
- Roland Curram – Vivian
- Liza Goddard – Liza Missenden Green
- Ambrosine Phillpotts – Lady Missenden Green
- Brian Oulton – funeral director
- David Healy – tourist (as Dave Healey)
- Steve Plytas – Signor Vittorio Ferruchi
- Louis Negin – Emilio Ferruchi
- Neil Wilson – Attendant Price
- Henry Gilbert – Don Luigi
- Anthony Stamboulieh – Dino (as Antony Stamboulieh)
- Guido Adorni – Carlo
- Stefan Gryff – Capo Mafioso
- Louis Mansi – Mancini
- Frank Coda – Mafioso (as Frank Codo)
- Sheila Keith – Lady Magistrate
- Tucker McGuire – American woman
- Phil Brown – American man
- Joan IngramvWoman in Art Gallery
- Julie Crosthwaite – Patsy
- Anna Gilchrist – Jane
- Margaret Courtenay – W.P.O.
- Dinny Powell – Arthur (as Dinnie Powell)
- Larry Taylor – hood
Production
The National Film Finance Corporation invested £62,000 in the film. It was the first NFFC investment following the ending of their Government funding, with new finance obtained from a consortium of merchant banks. The NFFC decided to only make "safe" films, and Ooh... You Are Awful was the first of these.[5]
Reception
The Observer called it "the best British comedy in many years."[6]
Leslie Halliwell wrote: "Amusing star vehicle with plenty of room for impersonations and outrageous jokes."[7]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This is a McGill seaside postcard come to boozy nudge-nudge wink-wink life and if that’s to your taste then it belts along like a runaway Blackpool train."[8]
The film made a profit.[9]
References
- 1 2 Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 357. Income is distributor's receipts, combined domestic and international, as at 31 Dec 1978.
- ↑ "Ooh… You Are Awful". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
- ↑ Ooh... You Are Awful Monthly Film Bulletin, London Vol. 40, Iss. 468, (Jan 1, 1973): 13.
- ↑ Dick Emery's land of smiles. Gifford, Denis. The Guardian 3 Jan 1983: 9.
- ↑ Small film makers left out in cold MacManus, James. The Guardian 31 Aug 1972: 6.
- ↑ But I like it: FILMS Melly, George. The Observer 7 Jan 1973: 32.
- ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 762. ISBN 0-586-08894-6.
- ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 688. ISBN 9780992936440.
- ↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985. Edinburgh University Press p280. Figures are distributor's gross.