Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 127

British Film Comedy

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continual indignities suffered by Carol Cleveland in the M onty Python teleseries,
or Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers films, it seems that Richie and Eddie
have constructed a comic ethos in G u est H ouse Paradiso which is a decided de
parture from the grinding exploitation the women in comic films are routinely
subjected to. As Fenella Fielding (Mrs. Foxfur) noted in an on-camera interview
during the making of the film, “I don’t think I’ve even been punched in the eye
before in a film, although of course they didn’t actua lly hit me. But they were such
gen tlem en about it” (making of G uest H ouse Paradiso videotape).
The technical expertise displayed in the film is another point of interest. Un
like the slack comedic structure that one finds in such recent American films as
D umb a nd Dumber, Deuce Bigalow: M ale Gigolo, Big D addy and other films (all
of which are also marred by a conspicuous streak of forced sentimentality), the
editing, photography, and direction of G u est House Paradiso recalls the crisp vigor
of such classic British comedies as Charles Crichton’s The L avend a r Hill_Mob
(1951), or Alexander Mackendrick’s The Man in the White S u it ( \ 95 \ ) , both also
produced at Ealing Studios, which has been (in various incarnations and under
numerous ownerships), one of the most reliably proficient and cost-conscious British
production facilities. In their own day, the classic Ealing comedies lampooned
conventional British mores in much the same way that G u est H ouse Paradiso
does today, but all these films exhibit the same economy of construction, brevity
of running time, and meticulous care in execution - a hallmark of British comedy
since its inception. Gags and pratfalls are executed with split-second timing and
editing together with seamless precision; the narrative pacing of the film is never
allowed to slacken, as Eddie and Richie race from one misadventure to the next.
And yet for all the frenzied activity on display in the film, one never loses sight of
the fact that the chaos in G u est H ouse Paradiso is carefully controlled, deftly
executed by a writer/director who very much deserves the title (although he would
properly despise it) of auteur.
Edmondson’s comic vision relies, above all, upon the punctuation of pompos
ity, the savaging of conventional arbiters of taste and morality. As he commended
to Claire Wills:
As we see it American films have been slowly stealing our terri
tory for years,” Edmondson sneers, singling out Jim Carrey for
particular disdain. “I think they get it wrong because Americans
are not very good at losing their vanity. They like to wisecrack,
and slapstick is really about being very stupid and losing your
dignity. Jim Carrey will still [pulls mugging face] at the end of
every f****** pratfall as if to say ‘that’s what I meant to do and
aren’t I great and sexy?”’ Edmondson smiles ruefully, “Doesn’t