A movie spin-off from the popular TV comedy series WHACK-O!, BOTTOMS UP sees Jimmy Edwards playing a strict professor who enjoys using the cane to bring his unruly pupils under control. This might have passed muster once upon a time, but these days it's very weak indeed and more than a little embarrassing. If watching Melvyn Hayes dressing up in blackface to play an Arab princeling is your idea of humour then that's all well and good, but I found this tired and drawn-out to the nth degree. Edwards gives a bluff, one-note performance and the likes of Richard Briers, Sydney Tafler and Reginald Beckwith are wasted in brief turns. The film feels like a gender-swap version of a ST. TRINIANS movie but isn't half as funny or indeed as boisterous as those.
Review of Bottoms Up
