Has anyone watched this film? Side By Side (1975), directed by Bruce Beresford. Starring Terry-Thomas, Barry Humphries and Frank Thornton -- and some of Britain's top bands of 1975.
What a strange film. It has its moments, most of them dreadful. The first musical number (Hello, singing Bend Me, Shape Me) is poor. But as the film progresses, the musical acts improve. Highlights include Fox singing Imagine Me, Imagine You; and Desmond Dekker singing Israelites.
The PC brigade would be chuffed with self-righteous indignation over a 'fantasy' scene with Barry Humphries in blackface at a piano, singing: "I'm just a lonesome chocolate coloured coon..."
The plot is like a prototype of Phoenix Nights. Two rival nightclubs are located side by side. One is a shabby cabaret/striptease club run by a shabby Terry-Thomas and his nephew Barry Humphries (a gloomy hypochondriac pianist). Next door is a rock'n'roll club. An authority figure (Frank Thornton sans moustache) threatens to shut down whichever club is the worst. So they try to book good acts.
The film is a mess and looks cheap, but it's better than The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), by which time poor Terry-Thomas was more evidently suffering Parkinson's.
Side By Side aims to be an Ealing Comedy and Carry On fusion, which fizzles. There are a few flashes of fun dialogue. Would have been better if done in the style of a Pinter play, as Barry Humphries and Terry-Thomas excel at pathos, rather than silly comic pratfalls.
