6/10
Silly, inoffensive film, with a well-tread plot and faulty direction
23 September 2017
This very broad comedy features several guffaws and one or two solid laughs. The premise is old hat: Douglas and Francis (Alfred Marks and Bob Monkhouse), two idler brothers of the stereotypical British upper-class variety, suddenly find themselves cut off without a penny in their late grandmother's will, in favour of a Corsican cousin, Toni, they have never met and whose existence they were previously barely aware of. Immediately dismissing the notion of actually working for a living, the brothers decide that their only viable options are reacquiring control of the estate by either marrying or murdering their cousin on her impending visit to the hereditary family manor on the English coast.

Initially deciding that murder is the more palatable of the two options, they find themselves vacillating somewhat, when Toni arrives in the person of the beautiful and seductive Anna Karina. From there events proceed in a predictable fashion as Douglas and Francis, without a whit of subtlety between them, alternate between trying to murder and romance Toni, as circumstances keep shifting beneath their feet, leading up to the totally foreseeable finale.

Tossed into the mix is a typical assortment of eccentric British comedy supporting characters: Hattie Jacques as a blustery journalist, Graham Stark as her silent, dour photographer, Peter Butterworh as a myopic, deranged country doctor and Clive Dunn as a confused and klutzy shopkeeper.

All the performers deliver exactly what is required of them, doing their best to work with the tried and true, but ultimately tired material. However, it really isn't the lack of originality that is the main failing of the production. Indeed, to a certain extent, the familiarity is both expected and comforting - the audience knows what kind of movie this is going to be from the moment the opening credits roll and can settle back at ease with it. What really lets the whole production down is Robert Asher's ham-fisted direction. Asher seems to have had no faith in the inherent humour of the material or the skills of his performers and his resulting attempts to force laughs with silly, insipid and embarrassing visual gags and groan-inducing "whacky" sound effects, not only display a lack of directorial inspiration, but a deficiency of good taste.

Certainly not a great movie, but one that is quite indicative of the era of film making that spawned it, SHE'S GOT TO GO is recommended more for fans of British comedies of the type represented by the CARRY ON series (of which Bob Monkhouse was an alumnus and Hattie Jacques and Peter Butterworh were regulars) than those of the Ealing Studios variety.
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