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Revisiting Fawlty Towers.

Started by Dusty Substance, October 01, 2019, 11:28:32 PM

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Quotedid I imagine it or did Alan break the fourth wall?

Can you post the clip?


Dusty Substance


I finished off my revisiting of Fawlty Towers with Gourmet Night (yeah, I watched them out of order) and didn't expect to be properly laughing at the scene where Basil gives his car a damn good thrashing as it's one of *those* clips that gets played to death. Still very funny.

Not sure about the bit where Basil forgets his own name. That whole scene is very funny ("Sorry, I fainted!" and "How's that charming daughter of yours?" "She's dead") but is forgetting one's own name is stretching the realism of FT just a bit too far?


lankyguy95

You have rats in Spain don't you or did Franco have them all shot?

Quote from: oy vey on October 05, 2019, 05:43:31 PM
Flip past 2:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weLdrmDj700

It's a close up inserted into the shot so the fourth wall breaking must have been deliberate, in order to convey his "what the fuck" reaction, which maybe did not come across when the scene was shot live

Also, the Manuel joke is "five mothers and four aunties".

mojo filters

I agree with all the positive things said about Fawlty Towers here. I just re-watched a few episodes. My experience only reinforced my opinion as previously stated.

It's absurdly well written and performed. What's particularly impressive is how it has not dated, despite being set in a world long since passed. I guess it's easy to find fault with flaws like the wobbly set, but I have no problem looking past that as an anachronistic inevitability.

I don't get the criticism of Connie Booth's accent. It works fine for me, but maybe I've become too accustomed to trans-Atlantic ways of speaking. Even if that's a minor flaw, it doesn't get in the way of the sheer comedic genius evident in every episode!

However thinking back on similar shows that I grew up with, I do see a coldness that other sitcoms of the period managed to better navigate. I was reminded of Stuart Murdoch's faux-prosaic line delivered by Olly in God Help The Girl - "no one ever cried at a Bowie song."

I'm not looking to find fault, but simply critique. For every good thing going about Fawlty Towers, it nevertheless lacks emotional warmth. By contrast, other sitcoms of the era seemed to have no problem including such.

Contemporary shows like The Good Life and M*A*S*H managed to better stretch the range of emotional reactions from the viewer. Maybe they sacrificed a little bit of sheer humour in achieving such? I don't think either show suffered, if that was the case.

I have no problem lauding the absolute brilliance of Fawlty Towers. In re-watching I was better able to reconcile certain issues I previously had - for example, I previously thought Prunella Scales' Sybil looked too old to realistically be Basil's wife. Now I'm far older and supposedly wiser, they look fine as a couple. I suspect seeing her on TV in shows like After Henry didn't help when I was younger.

In isolation, Fawlty Towers was a work of genius. More so because John Cleese didn't milk the situation, but rather left it while the going was still good.

However I'm struggling to see absolute perfection in the genre. Whilst I can laugh my ass off at nearly every funny line and scene, Tom Good or Hawkeye Pierce can both do the same, whilst also on occasion bringing an extra emotional depth that can cause one to also shed a tear.

I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with Fawlty Towers. I just recognise that certain brilliant contemporary works in the same genre offered more. I don't know if that is better, worse, or indifferent. I'm interested if others have noticed the same.

Twed

Minder never broke the fourth wall.

Analysing Connie's accent makes me feel like I'm having a stroke. I know it apparently sounds American, but unless I actively think "oh yeah, this is American" then she just sounds English to me. I have to really concentrate for to stand out (this was true before I lived in the US - in fact, I don't think I was aware she was American at all back then).

Glebe

Quote from: Tony Tony Tony on October 03, 2019, 01:32:12 PM
Excellent reminiscences.

I should mention the wonderful performance by Bernard Cribbins and his mustache.

 

He joins the ranks of noted comedy toothbrush tache wearers; Chaplin, Blakey from on the Buses, Oliver Hardy and Richard Herring.

Have I missed anyone obvious?

Cribbins performance is absolutely marvellous... I think Cleese said that he had the best comic timing of anyone he'd ever worked with.

beanheadmcginty

Fawlty's fake fainting must surely have influenced Larry David in that famous gif

Dropshadow

I missed both the original TV series', but a couple of years later I got two audio LP's of Mrs Richards, Hotel Inspectors, The Rat and The Builders which I listened to constantly. God, I loved them. Then I got a VHS and finally saw them all in video, then on DVD. Haven't watched FT now for a few years, but I'll give them a shot again. For some reason the quote that goes through my mind most often is "I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor and I want my sausages".

Ornlu

Quote from: Dropshadow on October 06, 2019, 09:34:34 PM
"I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor and I want my sausages".

Oh I'd forgotten that, that's brilliant. Guess I need to rewatch it now.

"Brahms' Third Racket!"

kalowski

Quote from: Dropshadow on October 06, 2019, 09:34:34 PM
I missed both the original TV series', but a couple of years later I got two audio LP's of Mrs Richards, Hotel Inspectors, The Rat and The Builders which I listened to constantly. God, I loved them. Then I got a VHS and finally saw them all in video, then on DVD. Haven't watched FT now for a few years, but I'll give them a shot again. For some reason the quote that goes through my mind most often is "I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor and I want my sausages".
A very good line that I also love. There's a line a like, but I can't find it. It's not part of the "amphibious landing craft" section. A boy doesn't like his food and Basil says something like, "Well, you liked half of it," just delightful petty nastiness with a hint of truth.

kalowski

Quote from: Ornlu on October 06, 2019, 10:49:34 PM
Oh I'd forgotten that, that's brilliant. Guess I need to rewatch it now.

"Brahms' Third Racket!"
If the guest isn't singing "Oh What A Beautiful Morning," I don't immediately think, "Oh there's another snuffed it in the night, another name in the Fawlty Towers Book of Remembrance."

Tony Tony Tony

"I mean, have you seen the people in room six? They've never even sat on chairs before."

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

" He comes from Barcelona, which is in Spain."

" Why are you using that Minnie Mouse voice when you mockingly impersonate me, Mr. Fawlty? That's not how I speak at all."


Tony Tony Tony

Quote from: kalowski on October 06, 2019, 11:10:48 PM
A very good line that I also love. There's a line a like, but I can't find it. It's not part of the "amphibious landing craft" section. A boy doesn't like his food and Basil says something like, "Well, you liked half of it," just delightful petty nastiness with a hint of truth.

Guessing you mean this....   https://youtu.be/U65rDaUQS6w

Captain Z

"Oh so you're the rat inspector! Sorry, Fawlty, starling inspector!"

Bad Ambassador

The timing of Cribbins putting his finger on the phone cradle to cut Basil's call, then raising it to point at him just as Basil slams the receiver down is a thing of wonder.

"Don't say anything to anybody, but he's dead."
"Oh. Shot, was he?"
"No, No. Died in his sleep."
"In his sleep. Well, you're off your guard, you see."
"..."

Bad Ambassador

Fucking hell, this one's amazing.

"Psychiatry, that's a relatively new profession isn't it?"
"Well, Freud started in 1886."
"Yes, but it's only now we're seeing them on the television."

mojo filters

After being inspired to rewatch most episodes, by far the least enjoyable this time around was The Psychiatrist.

The interactions with the titular character and his wife are very good and entertaining. However the far more absurd, slapstick-esque parallel storyline around Mr Johnson and the Australian girl, just seems far too over the top.

Whilst John Cleese's physical comedy is normally perfect, it often works best when balanced out with smart dialogue and coherent internal logic. Obviously this applies here to the sitcom genre, rather than a sketch show for example.

I get that we are supposed to see the irony in Basil's unusually excessive behaviour as a reaction to the psychiatrist's presence, but that part of the story seems excessively contrived to simply function as a vehicle for Basil's absurd shenanigans.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

It's also one of the episodes where you feel Basil should have " won" ( against Nicky Henson and his freewheeling ways )( see also that episode where he should have told Bruce Boa to fuck off for expecting a Waldorf Salad in fucking Torquay. And Finchy would never have reacted like that to David Brent telling him to fuck off).Quite a cruel writer, was Cleese.

Ambient Sheep

Yes, the cruelty and unfairness of both that episode and Mrs Richards is why I've never rewatched any of them, despite buying both the VHS box-set (when I was rich) and the DVD box set (from CEX when I was poor).  I keep trying to persuade myself that I must, but I simply can't cope.  Pathetic.

Glebe

"I'm not a violent man, Mr. Fawlty..."

Phil_A

"Down the stairs? Well, don't stop when you get to the basement. Give my regards to the Earth's core."


pigamus

In a sane world people would talk about Bernard Cribbins the same way they talk about Anthony Hopkins or something. He is the absolute bollocks.

oy vey

Quote from: chrispmartha on October 07, 2019, 03:36:38 PM
"yes you are"

Lovely stuff

"So you've handled that Basil?"

Gotta love Sybil.

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on October 07, 2019, 02:05:07 PM
Fucking hell, this one's amazing.

"Psychiatry, that's a relatively new profession isn't it?"
"Well, Freud started in 1886."
"Yes, but it's only now we're seeing them on the television."

"Attractive woman. How old would you say she was, Sybil?"
"48, 50?"
"Oh now, Sybil..."
"I really don't know, Basil, perhaps she's 12."

mojo filters

Quote from: oy vey on October 07, 2019, 04:03:15 PM
"So you've handled that Basil?"

Gotta love Sybil.

[My emboldening]

One thing that's really struck me in rewatching Fawlty Towers is how dramatically my view of Sybil has changed.

Originally I thought she stuck out as both a little too cartoonish in her affect, accent, mannerisms etc, and also too old in relation to Basil to make their marriage seem realistic.

I suspect my latter view was coloured at least in part by knowing John Cleese was actually married to Connie Booth. As far as the cartoonish perception of Sybil, I guess that was just down to a lack of life experience as a younger man, growing up in the north and so forth.

I still have one query about the Sybil character that struck me originally and has never been resolved, also referenced by a previous post here - what's up with the wigs in their bedroom?

I assume from seeing Prunella Scales in other shows around the same period, that's her own hair, or at least a pro type wig tweaked meticulously as per continuity standards.

I have no experience of visiting the bedrooms of ladies of her specific 1970's vintage; I have no idea if wigs were actually a real thing back then, or if it was a subtle set dressing designed to reinforce a particular affectation of that character?

If it was a deliberate way to infer an extra degree of self-absorption, vanity, excess etc - was that actually grounded in some kind of reality, or just a smart, shorthand way to build a character?