I first saw this film as a child, and it's stayed with me all these years - with its certain familiarity and a hankering for times gone by, when comedy was a lot more unsophisticated and didn't always require a great deal of intellectual engagement.
Viewing it now, all these decades later, its many flaws are apparent - and it must take a fair bit of dedication for anyone to want to sit through it!
As the title suggests, the film revolves around each of the seven deadly sins, with an individual segment for each one of around 15 mins. These are written and directed by different people, and have a different cast each time.
One bonus of this is the huge and familIar cast of the great and good of British comedy from this period in the early 70s - though perhaps not many would be recognizable outside these shores.
The comedy, such as it is though, is laboured, cheesy and sadly nearly always misses the mark.
The first two segments (starring Bruce Forsyth and Harry Secombe) are strangely compelling - despite their absurdities and daft endings.
Things take a dip though with a muddled third segment - starring the reliable Leslie Phillips in a role typically suited to his caddish and lecherous on-screen image, and surely written with him in mind.
Harry H Corbett stars in the fourth segment - it's one of the better stories here (set mostly on a tube train and tube station), but suffers from a decidedly corny ending - one that's also a bit sad too.
The fifth segment, starring Ian Carmichael and Alfie Bass is probably the best of this weak bunch. It studies class differences, and how this is tackled when a wealthy man in a Rolls-Royce meets a more humble man in a battered old jalopy head-on in a narrow country lane, with neither party willing to swallow their pride and back up to let the other car go.
After this highlight though, things fall apart with the final two segments. The first is a silent comedy starring Spike Milligan (among others) and feels very forced. It fails to raise any laughs, or even anything in the way of entertainment - and the bar hadn't exactly been set very high.
The final segment is a ludicrous story of two men who want to murder the oppressive local park keeper (played by 'On the Buses' Stephen Lewis), and this sorry and laughter-free story can't end soon enough...
All in all then, a real hotch-potch of poor comedy, and one that does its many stars a great disservice.
I guess it's worth watching these days just for its oddity value - like 'it's so bad it's good' kind of thing.
My favorite part was spotting the locations in and around Pinewood Studios, and also spotting all the many famous faces, some in quite minor or supporting roles too.
View at your peril, but be warned - 'Carry On' this is not!
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins
1971
Action / Comedy
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins
1971
Action / Comedy
Plot summary
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing talent. The sketches are linked by animation sequences. The music score is by British jazz musician Roy Budd, cinematography by Harvey Harrison and editing by Rod Nelson-Keys and Roy Piper. It was produced by Tigon Pictures and distributed in the U.K. by Tigon Film Distributors Ltd..
Uploaded by: OTTO
April 02, 2015 at 09:21 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLUMovie Reviews
Painful & dated all-star comedy compendium
Neither magnificent nor sinful.
Mostly pretty bland comedy, desperately contrived around its concept with an air quaint British naughtiness to keep it afloat.
I have a low key appreciation for "Pride" and "Gluttony" is sort of ribald good fun; it's fapable at the very least.
Unsurprisingly it's "Lust" that stands out among the crowd but not because it's funny or sexy. It's a disarmingly haunting depiction of loneliness and desperation.
A feature film sketch comedy, a genre they don't make anymore.
I'm a fan of Leslie Phillips, one of the all-time funniest British actors in UK history. The geniuses in Hollywood never utilized his talent, so screw them, I say. This is the second film he appeared in with the exquisite Julie Ege of Norway, a one time Hammer starlet in Creatures The World Forget. The underground segment with Harry Corbett is more noteworthy and sad than humorous.