George and Mildred | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Frazer Jones |
Produced by | Roy Skeggs |
Written by | Dick Sharples |
Starring |
Yootha Joyce Brian Murphy Stratford Johns Norman Eshley Sheila Fearn Kenneth Cope David Barry |
Music by | Les Reed |
Cinematography | Frank Watts |
Edited by | Peter Weatherley |
Release date
|
1980 |
Running time
|
89 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
George and Mildred is a 1980 British comedy film directed by Peter Frazer Jones. It was an adaptation of the television series of the same name. Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy reprised their television roles as the two title characters. It was written by Dick Sharples. Vicki Michelle also had a role in the film.
Mildred decides that she and George will celebrate their wedding anniversary in style at a swanky London hotel - however unhappy George might be at the cost involved. "I'm a traffic warden, not Aristotle Onassis", he tells her. But on arrival, George is taken for a ruthless hit-man by a shady businessman (Stratford Johns), who wants a rival eliminated. Mildred meanwhile remains in blissful ignorance throughout the resulting chaos.
Released shortly after the death of star Yootha Joyce (who died on 24 August 1980), the film was neither a commercial nor a critical success. One critic has described the film as "one of the worst films ever made in Britain . . . so strikingly bad, it seems to have been assembled with a genuine contempt for its audience." A writer for The Guardian stated that the film's failure marked "the death knell" for the 1970s British practice of producing motion picture spinoffs based on sitcoms. The film aired on television on Christmas Day 1980, only a couple of months after its theatrical release.