I Watch Films: Ooh... You Are Awful

Ooh… You Are Awful

Dick Emery was a British Comedian with a TV show throughout the 60s and 70s in which he played a lot of different characters. His signature character was a voluptuous blonde woman who would misinterpret innocent double entendres and say “Ooh… you are awful. But I like you.” Following this she would push the man out of her way and trot off. It’s funnier than it sounds.

(Emery, like the Pythons, created some good female characters, and inevitably played them himself, hogging the best parts for himself).

In this, his only lead performance in a feature film, he plays Charlie Tully, master of disguise and con man. In the opening sequence he and his partner Reggie Peek sneak into Buckingham Palace, there to con £500,000 out of an Italian car manufacturer in return for having his son marry Princess Anne. On their way to deposit it in a Swiss bank account Tully is arrested for a $200 con in the airport and is locked up for six months.

When he gets out Peek, a relentless womaniser, is worried that Sid Sabbath and his gang are trying to kill him for having an affair with Sid’s sister. In addition the Italian businessman has asked his mafia contacts to take revenge for him; they are happy to but beforehand want to get hold of the money. Peek is killed before he can tell Tully the name of the bank and the account number.

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It turns out that Peek had hidden the bank and numbers by tattooing them onto the buttocks of his four most recent lovers. Unfortunately the very camp tattoo artist can’t remember the details, and in fact is so distracted he makes a mistake on the tattoo he’s doing. Thus begins the farcical main section of the film as Tully dons various disguises and attempts various schemes in order to get a view of four good-looking women’s bums. This is both funnier and more interesting than might be feared, and also slightly less horny. For example, Tully gets into a society wedding by posing as a journalist. “Tatler,” says the first to enter, naming a glossy mag. “Vogue,” says the next. “Exchange And Mart,” claims Tully (a classified ad paper). Peek and Tully’s landlady, whose husband is behind bars, disapproves of one of the women. That Peek would go with a woman who earns her living like that? She’s a copper.

It’s a slightly uneasy mix of bawdy 1970s humour and a complicated crime plot. Perhaps more of an interesting oddity, there are a few good laughs to be found, even amongst some of the darker moments when the mafia deal with Sabbath’s gang members.

Watch This: For an amusing if dated comedy crime film
Don’t Watch This: If a film about trying to look at women’s bums seems a bit off