Great Britain

If you were one of the millions hooked on the TV series, then it's more than likely that you'll be hooting with laughter at this. It contains the same ingredients: a Galton and Simpson script with Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett in the leads, and that unique blend of farce and pathos. This lively comedy, directed by Cliff Owen in 1972, was the first of the Steptoe films. It opens with father and son leaving the divorce court in their horse and cart. They are quarrelling as usual, but this time about Harold's marriage and they recall the events of the past year...Harold announces one evening that he's off to the stag night at the local football club and his father insists on joining him. The night's entertainment includes a performance from Zita, a stripper, for whom Harold immediately falls. Next morning the couple are engaged. Albert's efforts to frustrate the marriage are useless and, after the ceremony, the threesome leave for their honeymoon on the Costa Brava. But Albert gets food poisoning, insists on returning home and, as their are only two remaining seats on the plane, Harold has to accompany him, leaving his wife behind. Later efforts to patch up the marriage when Zita is pregnant end in failure. Of course it's tragic, but that's life. It's also hilarious. Minutes before the wedding is due to take place, there is a mad scrabble for the ring which is lost in a pile of horse manure and there is subsequently much embarrassment at the ceremony. And when a baby is abandoned in the yard, Harold and father have it christened and assume parental responsibility. That is until the baby disappears with its own unknown mother. Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett re-enact the love-hate relationship of the TV series with the same unerring accuracy. Harold is still the hopeful innocent, eager to escape his environment but inevitably tied to the cunning but impossible Albert. By PATRICA PERILLI