The Best of Benny Hill

Amazon.com

Benny Hill was always best at quasi-silent slapstick, so it's no surprise that some of the best stuff on The Best of Benny Hill seems to owe more to the work of Mack Sennett and Fatty Arbuckle than to mainstream TV comedy. It may also be no coincidence that, unusually, this release began life in the cinema. There's some classic material on offer here: the extended opening item, "Lower Tidmarsh Hospital," for example, almost transcends buffoonery to become social comment, but best of all is the sketch which features Hill as a chat-show host (people really used to wear matching shirts and ties) attempting to deal with a West End star and starlet, the former monosyllabic, the latter catastrophically plastered. Among the other items featured, the knowing send-up of the pretentiousness of avant-garde French cinema is also very funny, while the short linking items include a wicked parody of Alan Whicker and a sideswipe at barely literate actresses ("What's that in the road? A head?"). Fans will be pleased to know that Hill's regular supporting cast, including Patricia Hayes, Nicholas Parsons and Rita Webb, are all present. --Roger Thomas

Customer Reviews:

Would have been.......2007-08-18

This should be a slam dunk 5 star rating. This is a nice compilation of Benny Hill skits and parodies. It is really a nice cross section of his work. If you remember Benny from cable and PBS, this is a nice inexpensive collection to keep on your shelf. For serious dvd collectors, the problem with the dvd has to do with the picture quality. This is a really bad transfer. Some parts look very grainy as if it was copied from an old VHS tape. That is the only thing that keeps me from giving this a perfect rating and a full recommendation.

"Best Of" - With a Qualification.......2007-08-08

One factor for the quality of this film being as it is (not the video-to-film transfers which in and of themselves were nothing more than color kinescopes, but the quality of the material) has to do with the fact that this was drawn ONLY from shows produced between 1969 and 1972 (with the rendition of "Yakety Sax" as heard all through the picture, having originated from the Dec. 27, 1973 show), and produced/directed by one person, and one person only - John Robins. Nothing of Hill's work up to that period from other producer/directors - which, up to the point this was prepared, also included David Bell, Keith Beckett and Peter Frazer-Jones - were even considered for inclusion, unfortunately, given that (as some may have suggested) the shows from these "other" directors may have been an improvement over what's offered here.

Oh, and one more thing: In the "Lower Tidmarsh Hospital Service" sketch, there was a switcheroo in the music, with the original custom-scored medley as on the original Nov. 19, 1969 airing being replaced with a loop of the aforementioned 1973 version of "Yakety Sax" in the outdoor scenes and a stock-music piece heard in the hospital scenes. This may have had something to do with music clearance issues, from one of two possibilities: a) the use in the sketch as originally aired of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," given that many Joplin tunes were heard in the then-recently released movie "The Sting"; or, more likely, b) the last song in the custom-scored medley, a cover of John Mayall's "Room to Move," which is perhaps his best-known tune from his most famous album, "The Turning Point."

well will do.......2007-05-12

I grew up watching Benny Hill comedy I can honestly say I was slightly disappointed with this dvd, it said "the best of benny hill", "some of the best",would have been a bit more appropriate. But, it is still funny and I am happy to have it nonetheless.

Review of Best of Benny Hill.......2007-03-08

This was purchased for my husband because we were great fans of Benny Hill when his shows were on TV in the 1970's and 1980's. When we viewed this DVD, we were very disappointed in the content. Most of the skits were very obscure. It contained only one or two of his best quality work. It definitely was a far cry from being the "Best" of Benny Hill. As a matter of fact, if it were possible, we would like to get a refund for this item. It didn't come close to being as advertised.

Thank you for asking.

It's been a while.......2006-08-30

I guess my memory of this show is greater than the show itself. Some good skits but we are in a different time today and I just remember them as greater and funnier. Not a waste becasue of the price. Maybe it will grow on me.

Bloody Good British Comedies (Clockwise / Are You Being Served? The Movie / The Best of Benny Hill)

Average customer rating:

A bloody good collection!!!
Two out of three ain't bad

Bloody Good British Comedies (Clockwise / Are You Being Served? The Movie / The Best of Benny Hill)
Starring: John Cleese , Penny Leatherbarrow , Howard Lloyd-Lewis , Jonathan Bowater , and Stephen Moore
Director: Christopher Morahan , Bob Kellett , and John Robins
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Comedy | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B0000844JF
Release Date: 2003-04-29

Amazon.com

Clockwise
Monty Python's John Cleese makes this lighthearted farce work as a tightly wound, punctilious public school headmaster whose well-organized life unravels in a series of disasters on his journey to a conference. Cleese is a master of fussy, fastidious characters in exasperating situations, bottling up his frustration under good manners and sardonic comments until he finally blows, but he's also startlingly vulnerable as he systematically loses all sense of himself. Dressed in monk's robes and stranded on a lonely country road, he looks down at his naked wrist and sighs, "I've even lost the time." Michael Fryan (the playwright of Noises Off) doesn't really have much of a story behind the situations, but he provides plenty of complications, and Cleese holds the film together with his brittle manner, single-minded drive, and hilarious headmaster's condescending haughtiness. While it will seem slight to many, Cleese fans will love it. --Sean Axmaker

Are You Being Served? The Movie
Writers Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft managed something quite clever with this, the film version of the 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served? The idea of this cheery collection of comedy stereotypes--the pompous one, the vulgar one, the camp one, the shifty one, and so on--being confined within a department store was a master stroke, as it allowed any kind of situation to arise without the plot having to exceed the restrictions imposed by the set. How, then, to keep the same theme for the big screen without just offering the television series writ large? Simple: send the whole cast on holiday together but make sure they can't leave their hotel, a state of affairs contrived easily enough by throwing a guerilla uprising into the plot. So it is, then, that the staff of Grace Bros. descends on the Costa Plonka while the store is closed for refurbishment. There are all the usual jokes involving knickers, boobs, toilets, and gay sex (sometimes all at once), adding up to a good slice of nostalgic fun for anyone who was there when lapels really were that wide. Incidentally, this item is worth having just for the wonderful Frank Langford caricatures on the cover. --Roger Thomas

The Best of Benny Hill
Benny Hill was always best at quasi-silent slapstick, so it's no surprise that some of the best stuff on The Best of Benny Hill seems to owe more to the work of Mack Sennett and Fatty Arbuckle than to mainstream TV comedy. It may also be no coincidence that, unusually, this release began life in the cinema. There's some classic material on offer here: the extended opening item, "Lower Tidmarsh Hospital," for example, almost transcends buffoonery to become social comment, but best of all is the sketch which features Hill as a chat-show host (people really used to wear matching shirts and ties) attempting to deal with a West End star and starlet, the former monosyllabic, the latter catastrophically plastered. Among the other items featured, the knowing send-up of the pretentiousness of avant-garde French cinema is also very funny, while the short linking items include a wicked parody of Alan Whicker and a sideswipe at barely literate actresses ("What's that in the road? A head?"). Fans will be pleased to know that Hill's regular supporting cast, including Patricia Hayes, Nicholas Parsons and Rita Webb, are all present. --Roger Thomas

Customer Reviews:

A bloody good collection!!!.......2004-02-10

This great 3 DVD box set contains 3 classic examples of great British comedy!!! "Are You Being Served?-The Movie" is a movie version of the classic Britcom!!! "The Best Of Benny Hill" is great compilation of classic skits from The Benny Hill Show!!! And "Clockwise" is a hilarious John Cleese movie!!! And this great DVD box set comes from Anchor Bay, so you know you're getting great quality!!! Two thumbs up!!! Five Stars!!! A+

Two out of three ain't bad.......2004-01-19

The Benny Hill DVD is wonderful, just as you'd expect.
Are You Being Served was a movie with all the cast on a store sponsored holiday at a resort - I enjoyed it very much as well.
The DVD Clockwise was not what I expected from a review I read earlier. It was extremely slow moving and while I tried to wait for the "funnies" I kept dozing off... If it had been condensed to a half hour show, it would have been much more enjoyable.

Average customer rating:

The Best of Benny Hill [Region 2]
Starring: Benny Hill , Patricia Hayes , Eira Heath , Henry McGee , and Nicholas Parsons
Director: John Robins
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

DVD:

DVD

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