The Bed Sitting Room (1969) Online

This is a visually stunning, funny, brilliant, and extravagantly weird film that should best be compared to El Topo, Barbarella, Playtime, and the Cremaster series. It's the kind of movie made with a big studio budget and free artistic reign; a combination that existed in other late 60s and early 70s bombs that have become cult classics.

Imagine if Monty Python did a lot of LSD, spent a million dollars on art direction, and then made a nuclear-apocalypse satire. Each shot is as sumptuous and symbolically rich as any Mathew Barney created - what with middle class Brits walking on a field of broken china, Underground escalators that end in mid-air, and Cathedrals submerged in water. Plot-wise, this is as free-of-field as an experimental film. Whether you think it profoundly beautiful or profoundly ugly, the look is in the Quay brothers'/Dubuffet mold. Its narrative loosely strings together amazing images, costumes, and poignant, often hilarious scenes of British society desperately trying to hold on to any remaining shards of civilization. The Bed Sitting Room is full of sarcastic comments and profound notions. It is not full of plot - it's amazing without it.

If there is any chance to see this movie on screen, take it. Any frame is worth the price of admission.

Pilloried in the decade that was His Time, Richard Lester had radishes thrown at him for being "modish," gimmicky, aggressively hip. (The great Manny Farber was uncharacteristically cruel, cruel.) He may seem in some lights like the Austin Powers of auteurs, but time has been kind both to his formal gifts (as magnificent as Nicolas Roeg's--or David Fincher's) and to the complicated, unsentimental, but hard-beating heart at the center of his movies. At least one Lester work, 1968's PETULIA, ranks among the greatest movies ever made. This little-seen classic, a sort of British-seaside ENDGAME, gets my vote as the most thrillingly beautiful end-of-the-world movie ever.

Coauthored by the "Goon Show" genius Spike Milligan, this post-apocalypse omnibus of sketches suggests John Osborne's Archie Rice rewriting an absurdist play by Gombrowicz. Tweedy lord Ralph Richardson post-atomically mutates into a bed sitting room while sixtyish, uncombed Michael Hordern uses the state of general unrest to get into bed with Rita Tushingham. (Her pregnancy arouses Hordern--until she gives birth, after seventeen months, to what is either a bird or a large pile of felt.) And above it all, Peter Cook flies on a hot-air balloon as a sexy cockney sadist--the post-nuclear Prime Minister to be, the first-draft choice of the Clockwork Orange Party.

A plot summary does no justice to Lester's and the DP David Watkin's images, which challenge the Vesuvian frescos of FELLINI SATYRICON for sheer overwhelmage. And the work of Lester's longtime composer Kenneth Thorne, with its English merriment never once acknowledging its own irony, ranks with the tip-top achievements of Rota or Morricone. This is a beautiful, haunting, great, sadly completely forgotten movie. Film hipsters have had their day lapping up Lucio Fulci and Jess Franco. Bring back a guy who once had a real job! Up with Lester!

Richard Lester's directorial career went into nose-dive (at least for a while) after making this film, which was a pity. It's a post-apocalyptic black comedy like no other. Typically British and typically Milligan-ish, with a stunning visual sense.

What I enjoy most about this film is its uncompromising weirdness. It's incredibly inventive, if not particularly funny, and also quite depressing - but it has to be, dealing with the aftermath of nuclear war.

There are some excellent performances from a cast which seems to contain most of the outstanding British comedy talent of the last thirty years (Marty Feldman is particularly fine) and some pointed satire about the British "stiff upper lip", but it's the surreal visuals which stand out, including the remains of a motorway with hundreds of cars half-buried in mud, and an escalator emerging into a landscape almost entirely composed of broken crockery.

A flawed masterpiece.

This is a wonderful surreal comedy based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. You know that it is going to be an odd film right at the beginning, when the opening credits list the cast in order of their height. The film begins with the BBC (Frank Thornton) telling us through the facade of an old television that this is the third, or is it the fourth?, anniversary of the shortest war in history, lasting 2 hours and 28 minutes. England is now a barren landscape, littered with derelict cars and buildings, hills of old boots, broken crockery, and other debris. Forty million people perished and there are only 20 known survivors. The Queen did not survive, and of the 20 known survivors the next in line for the throne is a Mrs Ethel Schroake of 393a High Street, Leytonstone. Among the other survivors are Ralph Richardson (O Lucky Man!) as Lord Fortnum of Alamein, who isn't looking forward to his impending mutation into a bed sitting room. Michael Hordern is Bules Martin, who wears a 18-carat Hovis bread ring. Spike Milligan is a postman who wanders around and delivers some memorable dialogue, for example: "And in come the three bears - the daddy bear said, 'Who's been sleeping in my porridge?' - and the mummy bear said, 'that's no porridge, that was my wife' ". Arthur Lowe is slowly turning into a parrot (which is then eaten by Spike Milligan), while his wife, the owner of her own death certificate, turns into a wardrobe. His daughter is pregnant with a strange creature, which she has held inside her for seventeen months. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are a pair of policemen who perpetually tell the others to "keep moving!". Moore growls a lot and turns into a dog at the end. Marty Feldman is a wellington-boot-wearing nurse. It's a hilarious, absurdist treat, and one of my treasured filmic pleasures.

Buried in the sheer oddity and downright perversity of the humour there is a deep pathos. People of all classes from Lord to lunatic try through activities and language to cling to a civilization represented by heaps of objects. The horrors of holocaust are tempered by humour arising mainly from the ridiculous pretensions of the cast. Every mainstay of British middle and upper class culture has been made absurd - some of the characters are busy mutating into absurd objects - a bed sitting room, a wardrobe, a parrot. The humour is zany, the one-liners often mixing double entendre, understatement and naievity with real pathos. Arthur Lowe as the pompous father, Mona Washbourne as the all-sympathetic mother can bring a lump to the throat.

The nearest rival to Milligan's and Antrobus' satire is to be found in Swift. Lampooning society after it has endured the very worst of tragedies and demonstrating through a torrent of absurdities, that human decency survives is something difficult to sustain in text, but this Fellini-like panorama could never be contained by the pages of a book. It almost defines one of the things which film can do best.

It is ragged and patchy - but a film which includes Harry Seacombe as a 'regional seat of government' defies conventional criticism!

Some far thinking person at our new state of the art Village Twin Cinema decided to run The Bed Sitting Room and 2001: A Space Oddyssey as a double bill here in the very early '70's. That's where I first saw both and they have been locked in my consciousness as equally great and poignant comments on the "future". In one we get to boldly explore space, the other has us desperately rummaging in our own refuse to survive.

In August 2001 I wrote "I ache to see "Bed Sitting Room" again. Arthur Lowe and Mona Washbourne were exemplary, as was Ralph Richardson (and all of the rest). With the torrents of abominable drivel that has made it to DVD release, it is hard to fathom why such a unique gem is not even available on VHS. If there is a God he will inspire a DVD mogul to master and release The Bed Sitting Room, for the good of humanity - if not for my sake alone."

So now I am overjoyed that the Bed Sitting Room has been made future-proof and available to the general public in the carefully restored high definition MGM transfer which was simultaneously released on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK in 2009 by the British Film Institute. Both versions have valuable extras and a very helpful booklet.

With it's completely surreal narrative and winning photography, The bed Sitting room hits me now for a number of reasons, the first of which, is that despite looking strangely contemporary, all it's main leads (Except the young uns) are dead. Marty Feldman, Micheal Horden, Arthur Lowe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Sir Ralph, are all pushing up the daisies. There's something tragic about the cast in a comedy all being dead. For all intense and purposes, the film may as well be dead too as it was blind luck that I caught it. It is criminal that this bona fide classic never really made it past the main gates, while lesser films took the glory.

Made by Richard lester (A hard Days Night, Superman 2 & 3) in 1969, just before Monty Python hit pay dirt, it tells the story of Brits after the bomb, working class through to upper, it encapsulates the British eccentricities perfectly. It's pomposity and its sheer blooded bloody optimism. These characters, you might see on the tube on the way to work and despite furniture mutation and hunger, they're just the same. It's a testament to all concerned, that a potentially silly premise, is performed with total conviction and a little tragedy. It's especially weird to see Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir Micheal Horden as leads. In such a bizarre film, it swings the whole experience into brain frying proportions. It'd be like having Sir Ben Kingsley play Ace Ventura, Pet detective.

Another reason, this film is a triumph, is the superb set design and photography. While in Monty Python, it's surrealistic landscapes, while funny and inventive, never really touches the views on offer here, What was essentially a quarry, is now landmarks of Britain, with bits of it sticking out all over the place. stacks of shoes, dismembered traffic jams and indeed Bed sitting rooms clog up the toxic horizon, all glum and desolate, you half believe the story, as the landscape seems sort of real. I'll bet my mums dog that Python was influenced by the designs on display here. As the film was based on a play (By Spike Milligan and John Antrobus) I wonder how it looked in a theatre.

There you have it, a classic film in every way if you like that sort of thing. If you catch it, you'll wonder if you saw it, then you'll be angry that you've never heard of it, after that you'll never forget it, it's just a shame you'll probably never get to see it...

This is a movie that has followed me all throughout my life even though I have only watched it one time approx. 22 years ago. The classic British humor in this prepared me to enjoy other comedy such as Monty Python. I am new to the net and am desperately trying to purchase a copy of this masterpiece to dedicate to the now deceased friend I had watched it with years ago. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Mischief is afoot from the very start of this very British apocalypse: "Cast in order of height" declares the credits of The Bed Sitting Room, as smaller performers like Rita Tushingham and Dudley Moore, and taller ones like Peter Cook and Ralph Richardson turn mad, or into furniture through atomic mutation, in a London turned Neolithic through technology. An A-Bomb in Wardour Street, indeed. However, as Pink Floyd once sighed, "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" and, as always, small island ritual, tradition and stiff-upper lips must yet prevail, even after World War III.

Amid such bombed-out devastation (in reality, a disused quarry in Surrey), one man powers the national grid by pedalling furiously on a bicycle dynamo; Frank Thornton's BBC man, formal and proper in exactly half a tuxedo, declaims yesterday's news through a shell of a television set (and closes with a rendition of the revised national anthem "God Save Mrs Ethel Shroake of 393a High Street Leytonstone"); and Arthur Lowe's family man rides endlessly round the Circle Line with his wife and 18-month pregnant daughter, subsisting on chocolate bars purloined from tube station vending machines.

Elsewhere, Marty Feldman's cross-dressing Nurse Arthur roams the desolate terrain, personally delivering death certificates to the living: "I thought I was alive, but here it is in black and white" exclaims Mother (Mona Washbourne). "Do I lie down or something?" Nevertheless, she too has begun the inexorable Dali-esquire transformation into a cupboard ("Get your hand out of my drawers!"), just as her Prime Minister husband will transmute into a parrot - soon to be cooked and eaten by Spike Milligan's passing postman. "Guess this'll mean a by-election," he observes, gnawing on a wing.

Although, as conversions go, Lord Fortnum of Alamein (Ralph Richardson) achieves the most startling of all: he turns into a bed sitting room. "What do I take for it?" he enquires of Michael Hordern's roving GP. "Three guineas for your rent," comes the reasoned reply. And aggrieved at having wound up in Paddington, or what's left of it, Fortnum demands the doctor place a "No coloureds" sign in his window. Hovering above them all, in a clapped-out Volkswagen tethered to a hot air balloon, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's bowler-hatted policemen bark through megaphones at the straggling survivors to "keep moving - you're safer that way".

"How long is this sh*t going to go on for?" a United Artists executive barked at director Richard Lester during a company screening. At times, contemporary audiences might ask the same question of this near-plot less, relentlessly absurdist sketchbook, overwhelming and fatiguing in its obsessive-compulsive gag-making. Loosed from the comparatively reigned-in parameters of a half-hour's 'Goon Show', Milligan's manic (depressive) wit exhausts and repels as often as it delights, until it eventually burns itself out.

As 'The New Yorker's' Pauline Kael wrote about an earlier Lester film The Knack, but her argument can also be applied here, "If there are enough gags, perhaps the audience, panting to keep after them, will not worry about why they don't go anywhere." In other words, 'Too many jokes, Mozart.' Neither is the film helped by the presence of Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE, the human equivalent of a housefly repeatedly dive-bombing a window pane.

The film's original tagline 'We've got a bomb on our hands' may have proved horribly prescient, but The Bed Sitting Room remains a haunting, dazzlingly inventive original, sporting more ideas, half-birthed or otherwise, than most movies of whatever genre, during its every minute of screen time. It is also strikingly photographed by David Watkin, who went on to lens The Devils, and ingeniously dressed by Assheton Gorton, the art director responsible for painting an entire South-east London street red for Blow Up.

That million dollar budget was certainly put to good use too. Against a dystopian backdrop common to every post-apocalyptic sci-fi from A Boy And His Dog to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, there are some unforgettable images and uniquely homegrown touches: a tube escalator ending in mid-air; two lovers dancing in a vast field of smashed crockery; the dome of a submerged St Paul's Cathedral, rising from the sea.

If the film's antecedents include everyone from Flann O' Brien to Samuel Beckett, its influence on those that followed is clearer still. A link-chain between The Goons and Monty Python, it is The Bed Sitting Room's fate to be remembered more as midwife, a Baptist to successive prophets of comedy, than as star in its own right.

All the same, it is fascinating to observe it going about its business at a very particular juncture on the comic timeline. At this point, the spirit of satire, personified by Peter Cook, is figuratively and literally floating above proceedings, while Spike's shrieking Goonery is still very much on the ground. Here's the man himself delivering a custard pie in the face, as a postman would deliver a parcel ("Just sign here"); here's his voice, clear as day, riffing through other characters with throwaway one-liners: "I hear the Pope's allowing contraceptives for all occasions, except during sexual intercourse..."

Satire will out, but it's a dismal victory in anybody's book. At time of writing, 2009, the British political system is busily imploding, with numerous politicians having been caught with their arms in the till, helping themselves to extra expenses for imaginary mortgages or using taxpayers money to clean out their moats. This, during an era in which the economy itself is in freefall. In The Bed Sitting Room, Arthur Lowe elects himself Prime Minister one morning, simply because he measures his inside leg and finds he's "very well equipped... I always knew my inside leg would lead to power".

Amid calls for a referendum on proportional representation, and with the democratic process under review, who's to say ministerial postings shouldn't be decided by the mathematical exactitude of an inside leg measurement? At least it wouldn't be open to interpretation.

I saw it in 1969 and will never forget it.

The cast was a fine cross section of the best Pommie comedy actors of the period.

The sight of Marty Feldman in a nurses uniform with Crossed Bandoliers of syringes was surpassed only by Harry Secombes ode to the Pin Up.

Would love to get it on Video - Does anyone know how we can get it onto CD, Video, whatever.

For some strange reason, I recorded this movie one afternoon when it aired and my brother still has it on tape. Hilarious. Ralph Richardson, MIcheal HOrdern, Dudley Moore and Peter cooke were incredibly funny, but Mona Washburne as Mother had us laughing mostly, such as when nurse marty Feldman informed her she had died while she was still very much alive. "Well, you can't argue with it. There it is in black and white." and especially when she was throwing the dishes and was called a 'slut'. "Get out of here, ya slut." too funny! Rita Tushingham gets a bit irritating as the youthful voice of reason, possibly what hurts this movie most, but Peter Cooke's dialogue is priceless. Absolutely priceless. Then of course, we have to pay homage to our Royal Family. Or as close as we can get. Mrs. Ethel Stronk, was it?

One of those movies where one looks at everyone involved with the film and thinks a surefire hit but it isn't. Really just a series of skits about carrying on in the English way after a nuclear attack, the film never connects in any way with the viewer. Originally a play by Spike Milligan, I have a feeling that on paper the movie would seem hilarious and though a couple of scenes translate well (the tube train that keeps running even though no one needs it and the wedding) most of the skits fall flat. I, for one, cringed every time Marty Feldman appeared wearing a nurses uniform. Maybe part of the problem is that the film is definitely targeted towards a British audience and since I'm American, I don't get it but I think that even the English would find it dated today.

This film is set in Britain several years after WWIII--a war that concluded after only 2 or 3 minutes. In its wake, the country is a post-apocalyptic mess--and the survivors, in true British fashion, struggle to maintain their everyday lives and keep a stiff upper lip. I enjoyed hearing the way people referred to the war (because they DIDN'T call it a war--more of a 'misunderstanding'!) and seeing the BBC news was a hoot. In fact, the first 10 minutes or so of "The Bed Sitting Room" was very enjoyable. Unfortunately, there was another 80 minutes to go! Yes, this is a wonderful example of a nice concept for a short sketch being drug out to an incredibly over-long mess. To me, it all became very ponderous after a while. Now don't assume that I just don't like British comedy--many of my favorite films and shows over the years are from the UK. It's just that the pacing of this film was dreadful and it desperately needed SOMETHING--not just more of the same. A clear misfire.

I have seen this movie many times, but it takes some effort. Here in Chicago, one local film buff art house (Facets Multimedia Center) shows it from time to time. It's amazing that it usually draws 100 people or so for each showing. On several occasions, I have rented a 16mm print of it from United Artists and rented a projector, then threw a party and showed it to my friends. It shows up on TV occasionally, usually late at night. One friend of mine caught it on television and got a VHS tape in the machine just in time to catch the whole thing, while editing out the commercials. He might have the only known VHS copy of this film.

There must be some-one out there with some idea how fans of this classic can get to see it.Whenever I read a message concerning this movie it seems to come from an area in that persons mind reserved for The Bed Sitting Room. Relating scenes of a movie no-one you know has ever seen or is ever likely to see can be embarrassing. This movie has become an obsession ever since my first and only viewing in Sydney circa1970.Can someone help myself and others end this frustrating search. Regards and "keep moving"

The fear of mutating into a small apartment, in a world where building is forbidden! Or the best metaphor for a fear of progress or "modernity", I've ever come across.

One of the oddest things I've ever seen. Richard Lester must have an impressive budget for this. All the sets are ruins, but they are amazing ruins, cathedrals submerged in water, escalates to nowhere...a bed-sitting room in the middle of the desert.

At some point in the past England lost WW3, the shortest and most nuclear of wars, which has left Englands surviving population of about 20 or so completely, if not near completely insane. Those that are not insane, like Dudley more in his balloon powered police car, forbidding people from any kind of re-construction (less the attacks be re-provoked), well these other people are suffering bizarre mutations..mostly into furniture.

After a Lord transforms, slowly and hilariously into a full on bed sitting room, others begin mutating, into Cabinents and parrots.

The life of a pregnant girl and her family who have been living on the subway (riding in perpetual circles), who decide to go back to the surface world, coincides with the story of our Lord the bed sitting room, which represents a real problem...not only is the man an object, hes the first new building, and sign of civilization in years. When he asks a doctor what he should do about it, "My advice, charge 20 quid rent, be mindful of drafts".

Hijinks ensue, and though bleak at times (a few shades light of a dead baby joke), Richard Lester's madcap "The Bed Sitting Room", is one of those odd, clever, allegorical comedies, that's just too smart for it's own good. Too political and absurd in it's time, to have been properly appreciated. For people who like Monty Python, Alejandro Jodorowsky, or Steven Soderbergs "Schizopolis", of whom Richard Lester is the driving influence, this is the only post-ASPCA-slapstick comedy you need to watch.

i happened upon this film being shown on the BBC, as it always seems to do with really good movies, late, late, late one night quite a few years ago. to my horror no matter how hard i tried to wedge the matchsticks under my eyes, i could not manage to stay fully awake and with disastrous timing my video had given up the ghost the week before...alas i was lost!!!!!!! the portion of the film i saw had me in stitches,(Marty Feldman's Nursey would have been ecstatic), all the cream of the newly emerging alternative comedy scene seemed to be taking part and set me on a, until now, fruitless quest to track down a trace of this classic through the years. the previous commentator stated he has a copy... GASP!!! THE HOLY GRAIL!!! if anyone out there knows how i can obtain a copy of this fantastic, much overlooked classic, please please please can they get in touch with me at [email protected] and let me know so that i may finally finish a film i began watching sometime in the late nineties. Have mercy on me and put me out of this misery.

"The Bed Sitting Room" is hard to describe to the average viewer. It reminded me of a Monty Python film with set pieces from a Salvador Dali painting. Many have compared the film to the work of director Alejandro Jodorowsky, which is probably the best way to describe the film's surrealism. Because of all the rubble and junk-piles turned into crazed surrealist imagery, It's also been compared to "The Cremaster Cycle". But I feel "the Bed Sitting Room" is much more enjoyable than the pretentious, self referential cremaster series. Did I mention how funny the film is? The story concerns a nuclear war that happened so fast, that hardly anyone remembers it. There is a dozen or so survivors. Because of all the radiation, one man is convinced he'll turn into a bedroom. A young girl is 18 months pregnant. Her mother turns into a dresser and her father a parrot, all due to radiation. Weird Huh? And we can't forget Mrs. Ethel Shroake, the survivor that's the closest distant relative to a now deceased queen of England. This film is utter lunacy and gets better with every viewing. The humor in the film is very dry. The more you think about the jokes, you realize just how ridiculous and funny it really is. So if your looking for an obscure, surreal end of the world wasteland, this is a film for you. I personally loved this film . Its wit and originality are in a category of its own. It's as if Monty Python and Jodorowsky teamed up to make a movie. "Long Live Mrs. Ethel Shroake!!!"

We found a VHS copy! Watched it recently, and still laughed out loud, even though nuclear annihilation is not much of a hot topic. I would still highly recommend it for anyone searching for dark humor, sort of Monty-Python style.

One of the two outstanding black, apocalyptic science fiction comedies -- DR. STRANGELOVE is the other. This one's got it's flaws, but it has more than its share of virtues, too, especially in the area of creativity.

The gag success-rate here lies at around 8%. Not much to laugh at here. Some daft puns, outdated half-satire, and one-liners that may have worked for the Goons but mostly fall flat here. If only they had slowed down the tempo and given the cast sedatives to calm down, this would have been a much funnier movie.

I've never enjoyed farcical comedy; all that manic overacting, the rapid-fire dialogue without a smidgen of comedic timing, and grown men mugging like kids. It's like those ancient Cary Grant comedies in which the height of "comedic brilliance" was to say your line as quickly as possible after which the other actor would blurt out his line very quickly, and so on, into what seemed like infinity until the film finally and mercifully ended. Plus the overly cheerful, almost cartoonish, happy-go-lucky soundtrack that seems to be constantly reminding the viewer "see? See? This is a comedy! These are LAUGHS! So please do laugh if you can"; music that is almost begging the audiences to enjoy the overly childish goings-on. Nothing worse than a comedy that is insecure about its own quality of humour hence has to remind you at every corner that, yes, you're watching a comedy. Sort of like naming a comedy "The Very Funny Comedy" - which no-one in their right mind would do (except the Germans).

It is the kind of humour that the French, bless their taste-free souls, scream their onions off to. It is the sort of "hoo-hoo-ha-ha-hee-hee-hee" crap Terry Gilliam would indulge in many years later, endlessly, in some of his weaker films. But for some reason Lester & co thought that injecting a series of crummy farce-gags into a futuristic, i.e. unusual, setting would somehow make them funny when they otherwise wouldn't be. But I doubt the setting matters much; you could place those gags between my butt-cheeks and I still wouldn't find them funny. (Well, 92% of them I wouldn't, anyway.) Still, TBSR is doubtlessly watchable, if for no other reasons than because it is a sort of 60s oddity, and most filmic oddities deserve to be at least checked out - plus the excellent cast, which is admittedly quite wasted here.

Come to think of it, no. There is no such thing as a "wasted cast" ( aside from the fact that actors aren't sneakers that can be wasted away through overuse) because if the material is weak and/or the direction is sloppy then a good cast will at least provide some reason to watch the film where there otherwise might be none at all.

The idea of having Mao Tse-Tung as one of the sole 24 (no, not 20, as the movie claims) survivors in Britain is actually a rather good one, real comedic potential there. But it isn't funny in TBSR. Why? Because in comedy it isn't just what you put on paper but how you film it. Any solid ideas the script may have contained had mostly evaporated by the time the shooting was done. Nevertheless, the second half of TBSR is a distinct improvement, most likely due to the fact that the high-energy mania lets up a bit, perhaps because the cast got exhausted from doing it so much in the first half? In any case, nearly all the laughs, the few that there are, are later on. And nearly all of these successful gags have to do with either Milligan or Feldman who steal the show here (whatever little there was to steal).

It's a real shame that farce was chosen as a way to bring this material to the screen. There was real potential here. Perhaps Lester & co forgot the old adage: less is more.

But if you're one of those people who found Peter Bogdanovich's "Nickelodeon" to be side-splittingly hilarious, or "The Great Race" made you laugh so hard you had to pee in your pants, or "Noises Off" made you fall off your bed, then by all means tuck in. This should be right up your alley.

After a "nuclear misunderstanding" has left 40 million people around the globe dead, an aimless, straggling group of survivors in and around London appear to be blithely ignorant of their own circumstances. Apocalyptic satire from director Richard Lester came complete with a defensive ad campaign which put down potential naysayers of the picture by proclaiming its humor was "over their heads". Lester could never be called a piquant filmmaker--more often than not he's simply smug--however, his crazy imagination and staging occasionally reveals a despairing underbelly which holds a lot more resonance than the revue-styled humor. Adapted from a play by John Antrobus and Spike Milligan, the film is mostly filled with the same type of punch-drunk, tail-chasing blackout sketches which permeated Lester's 1967 WWII satire, "How I Won the War". It's the kind of dried-up, far-out humor some admirers like to label as 'savage', though the jokes would be far more cutting had the characters not been so unappealing. A great deal of top British talent was employed here, yet the on-screen chattering eventually congeals into a head-splitting din. David Watkin's (appropriately) bleak cinematography is exceptionally strong--too strong and ugly, perhaps, for a farce. Results are strangely fatigued, scattered (albeit intentionally), and risible. *1/2 from ****

This was a very enjoyable film, but is very difficult to get access to.

I saw it on broadcast television while in Portland.

The film has wicked British wit, and has heavy surrealistic aspects to its production. Don't try to watch the movie from a causality standpoint (if A and B then C), just sit back and enjoy the ride.

If you can't stand surrealism, or if your movies MUST have a plot, steer clear of this title.

This is not really a spoiler, but don't read further if you just want the full impact of this wacky title.

The main character is dreadfully afraid that he is going to turn into an English Bed Sitting Room (a room in a house: Wikipedia "bed sitting room") All of this occurs against the backdrop of the world after it has been nuked to a trash pile. If this doesn't tell you how odd this film is, nothing will.

I laughed so hard while watching this movie, I thought I was going to wet myself.

I saw this abomination on TV many years ago...it was a boring unfunny amateurish mess back then and it hasn't improved with age. How anyone can watch this tripe and then say anything complimentary about it is a mystery to me. This is "English" (not British) humour at its worst. It's embarrassing that people try to describre it as a classic!!

With a poll on ICM coming up for the best films of 1969 I started searching for titles to view. Whilst looking around online, I found film reviewer Kim Newman praise a BFI "Flipside" edition of a rarely mentioned Richard Lester creation,which led to me viewing from the bed sitting room.

View on the film:

Dusting down the film,the BFI present an excellent transfer, with a real attention to detail in keeping the various tints with the various grains they were each given during production. Adapting Spike Milligan and John Antrobus's stage play, the adaptation by Antrobus and Charles Wood throws Goon Show word-play curve-balls at the end of the world,with hilarious mutters in an attempt to avoid saying the word "nuke" and the survivors desperately trying to give a normality to their dire situation.

Breaking from the stage origins, the writers smartly use the dark humour to bring a real sense of danger to the main family travelling across the destroyed landscape-facing a mad nurse handing out death certificates,and The Tube continuing to rumble along the silent stations. Offered the chance to do any project he wanted after the smash hit Beatles movies, director Richard Lester reunites with The Knack and Help! Cinematographer David Watkin to end the flower power decade with a doomsday. Incredibly filmed completely at real locations, Lester & Watkin's give their post-apocalypse a proto- Steam Punk twist,via the mountains of twisted metal covering the screen. Dipping into surreal fantasy, Lester splinters the film with melting tints that colourfully create an otherworldly atmosphere that knocks down the walls of the bed sitting room.