Reviews

Most of Dennis Potter's best work was done for the BBC: Pennies from Heaven, The Singing detective, Son of Man, Stand Up Nigel Barton. When he moved into commercial television his touch was less sure. The Bonegrinder is possibly the worst work he ever produced for TV.

The situation is that an uptight middle-class, middle-aged man with an unhealthy interest in low life picks up a young American man and takes him home. The man and his equally repressed wife are forced to examine their prejudices when they come up against this brash Yank.

The tone of the piece is completely wrong. It feels almost as if Potter wrote a comedy, but didn't bother to tell anyone else. Margaret Tyzack seems to get the gist of what is required and comes out of this debacle with some dignity, but most of the rest of the cast are at sea. Weston Gavin as the young American gives a truly dreadful performance which would be enough to scupper any production all by itself.

The critics were a bit sniffy at the time of its release, but this is one of the jolliest films made during the war. It concerns a group of English women caught in France during World War II and interned in a posh hotel.

It's full of the sort of "There'll always be an England" stiff upper lip stuff that looks so kitch these days, and yet there's also a feeling of release for these women since there are no men around.

Sadly, some RAF men accidentally parachute into the camp and the women have to hide them from the Germans. The men are undercast and a bit dreary, but they wouldn't stand a chance against the cream of British character actresses anyway.

The rest of the film concerns the women's attempts to smuggle the men out of the camp. The plot however is irrelevent. What matters is the way these actresses work without having to compete for billing with any male star.

The film is fun, risque and the best British romp before Tom Jones.