Up The Chastity Belt

The Queen of England gives birth to twins. In order to protect the blood line one is kept and the other hidden in a pig sty and is raised to think its mother is the pig. Lurkalot is the one raised by pigs who doesn't know his past. He makes a good living as a servant, selling chastity belts on the side.

I think this a great film, very funny.

Anyone else like this?

Yes I like this, I am a big fan of Frankie's. When it comes to comedies I prefer the old films. Everyone has always said I was born to late as I am in a time warp and always have been when it comes to taste in comedy. I still love Will Hay, Jerry Lewis, Norman Wisdom, Abbott and Costello etc etc. Luckily most of their movies are available to watch on you tube

It's not bad, probably not as good as the other two but still very watchable. I like Roy Hudd's routine as the locksmith. I wonder if MP got anything from this for their medieval romp?

Nick the Pick - locksmith

Love Frankie. It was a great film.

Crap film brilliant theme tune.

"To the stake, take him to the stake"

"Don't bother I'm a vegetarian"

Genius

Up The Chastity Belt on the front page of the ABC Film Review, with Anne Aston and Frankie getting cosy.

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Quote: bigfella @ 27th August 2013, 8:55 PM

"To the stake, take him to the stake"

"Don't bother I'm a vegetarian"

Genius

Mixed reviews on here and cannot see how anyone could call this really funny. Seen FH in much funnier stuff and had the feeling he was trying to make the best of a poor script, speaking of which - part writers Galton & Simpson and producers Ned Sherrin and Beryl Virtue????? With those on board why was it so woeful and lacking.

Oh, and.................................bigfella

YES! Spike Milligan was a genius - it's a wonder he wasn't credited as a script writer on this debacle because it was from him that they stole the joke, a joke that was then nearly 20 years old from The Goon Show of.............................

"Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest"

Moriarty: Tie him to a stake!
Bluebottle: No! Do not tie me to a stake!
Moriarty: Why not?
Bluebottle: I'm a vegetarian..................

Foolishly searched up a trailer.
My God! What a pile of poo!

Well it was in a way an alternative to the Carry On franchise, but IMO most of the best lines and gags had already been well used by the end of the 60s that's why the Ups and latter Carry Ons look a bit stale. Carry On just happened to get there first and recycle a lot of radio material and old music hall stuff, which was itself much recycled by other writers for radio shows.

Today, you'd get greedy stand-ups claiming blue murder at their jokes being nicked by writers for films and suing. I believe then writers like Muir and Norden took it as a compliment. (And their reputations as writers were enhanced.) All much more civilised back then. I'm sure Milligan was the same, worked freely with Sykes and Junkin in the 60s all borrowing each other's lines, or so I believe.

And is a 20 year old joke still copyright? Wouldn't have thought so but I don't know.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 19th June 2020, 11:08 AM

And is a 20 year old joke still copyright?

It's an interesting question and a very important question to comedy writers and performers.

The answer depends on the more basic question of whether or not copyright ever existed in that particular joke - and that depends how simple or complicated the joke is. The question for a judge would be whether or not it seems likely that two people could have come up with that joke independently. The shorter and simpler the joke, the more chance there is that two or more people could have thought of it independently.

If the joke is sufficiently long or complicated to convince a judge that it's unlikely that two or more people should have come up with it independently, copyright has been breached - even if the joke was originally written 20 years previously.

Many of the "Carry On" jokes and many of the "Up" jokes were short quips rather than long involved stories. On that basis, had Frankie Howerd and the "Up" team been sued for copyright infringement of such jokes, they would have been well advised to respond "Up yours!" and challenge their accusers to sue them.

PS. I can't remember a comedian ever taking another comedian to court for nicking a joke.

PPS. I do, however, remember Jimmy Carr threatening Jim Davidson with legal action over theft of a joke.

Yes I'm pretty sure the court costs far outweigh the monies you could prove were lost and that's if you manage to win. Today's comedians seem to be a Lot more sensitive about it than past comedians, where jokes seemed to be happily shared around. And we know Carr's stance on money.

In the old days, once a comedian told a joke on stage or on TV, the audience would retell it the next day in the workplace and every other comedian who heard it would, if he so wished, nick it for his own act.

I think the stealing of material by fellow comedians was almost universally accepted, probably because exceedingly few comedians wrote their own material. In those days, a comedian's act tended to be a series of traditional jokes - i.e. self-contained stories - that bore no relationship to one another.

Of course, in those days, it was virtually impossible to identify the author of such a joke and so it's highly likely that every stolen joke was, in fact, stolen from somebody who had already stolen it from somebody else.

Frankie Howerd and the Carry On team grew up and worked in the days when that sort of thing was accepted.

Nowadays, a comedian's act tends to be very much more personal. Comedians tend to talk about themselves and their own lives rather than tell stories about imaginary third parties.

Today, the theft of comedy material is just about the worst crime a comedian or writer can commit.