Love Thy Neighbour
Directed byJohn Robins
Written byHarry Driver
Vince Powell
Produced byRoy Skeggs
StarringJack Smethurst
Rudolph Walker
Nina Baden-Semper
Kate Williams
CinematographyMoray Grant
Edited byJames Needs
Music byAlbert Elms
Production
company
Distributed byAnglo-EMI
Release date
  • 4 July 1973 (1973-07-04)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Love Thy Neighbour is a 1973 British comedy film directed by John Robins and starring Jack Smethurst, Rudolph Walker, Kate Williams and Nina Baden-Semper. It was a spin off from the television series Love Thy Neighbour (1972–76).

It included the last film appearance of James Beck.

Plot

Eddie and Joan Booth, a white couple, live next door to Bill and Barbie Reynolds, who are black. Although Joan and Barbie are best friends, Bill and Eddie are complete opposites. Without their husbands' knowledge, Joan and Barbie enter a "Love Thy Neighbour" competition to win a cruise, but must contend with the problem of their antagonistic husbands. To add to the problems, Joan's mother-in-law is coming to stay, and Barbie's father-in-law is coming from Trinidad.

Cast

Reception

Box office

The film was popular at the box office and ranked as the 15th-most-popular of the year in the U.K.[1][2][3]

Critical

David McGillivray wrote in The Monthly Film Bulletin: "Another example of domestic farce every bit as asinine and harmless as the TV series from which it derives. The staging, pacing and vaudevillian caricatures appear to be of roughly the same vintage as the jokes."[4]

The Manchester Evening News called it "the most successful case I have seen yet of a television comedy series transferring to the big screen."[5]

Britmovie wrote: "This dated, politically incorrect tale of bigotries and one-upmanship is sprinkled with ignorant comments and insults that are frequently more laughable than offensive when viewed today."[6]

References

  1. ^ Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio, Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography, McFarland, 1996 p368
  2. ^ Harper, Sue (2011). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh University Press. p. 270. ISBN 9780748654260.
  3. ^ Swern, Phil (1995). The Guinness book of box office hits. Guinness Publishing. p. 192.
  4. ^ "Love Thy Neighbour". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 40 (468): 172. 1 January 1973 – via ProQuest.
  5. ^ "Just a little local trouble". Manchester Evening News. 7 July 1973. p. 3.
  6. ^ "Love Thy Neighbour 1973". Britmovie. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2014.

External links


Situation comedies by Vince Powell
Categories