On the Buses (1971)
Directed by Harry Booth

Film Review

Just as its horror output was beginning to wane in popularity the British company Hammer Films suddenly acquired a new and badly needed string to its bow in the early 1970s with its first On the Buses film.  The move from stylish Gothic horror to lowbrow comedy snatched from the small screen was as profitable as it was improbable and Hammer found it had a sure-fire hit, bringing to the big screen one of the most popular British sitcoms of the time.  The film's massive popularity (it was the highest grossing British film of 1971) ensured that other sitcoms would soon enjoy the same film makeover treatment, although few were as successful as Hammer's contribution to this short-lived and much-maligned genre.

Like the original television series before it, the critics had great fun trashing the On the Buses films, but this critical onslaught did not prevent them from being box office gold, films that would be repeated endlessly on television throughout the 70s and 80s.  The popular appeal of these films is hard to fathom, however.  The humour consists almost entirely of bus-themed sight gags (mostly brilliantly realised) and tacky, overly repeated innuendo, of the kind that had already been worn into the ground by the Carry On films.  The main characters are, without exception, unlikeable comic book grotesques which comprise a pair of sad, middle-aged lechers, a Hitler-like authority figure and a fat woman in glasses with an eating disorder and a constantly whinging husband.   We are clearly not intended to sympathise with any of these wretches; rather, we are expected to gloat at whatever misfortunes their sadistic creators throw at them.  It's like a grubby circus show where the 'exhibits' are routinely lined up and electrocuted for our amusement - sad and degrading.

Helped along by a jaunty theme song, the first On the Buses film manages to be a lot less depressing, and a lot funnier, than the hideous television series that spawned it.  A plethora of imaginative visual gags make up for the coarse innuendo and pretty aimless narrative, although the surfeit of bad taste and lack of anything even vaguely approximating to a likeable character make it a more than slighly nausea-inducing ride.  The two subsequent films, Mutiny on the Buses and Holiday on the Buses, plumbed the depths even further, garnishing the recycled gags with a liberal dose of toilet humour.  The On the Buses films may look like relics from a bygone era (which they certainly are, seemingly pre-dating the reign of Queen Nefertiti), but their peculiar brand of 1970s political incorrectness does occasionally manage to extract a laugh or two, although you do wonder how such a lame comedy, doused in misogynistic, homophobic and racist bigotry, could ever have passed as mainstream entertainment.

Film Synopsis

A chronic staff shortage allows London bus driver Stan Butler and his colleagues to get away with murder.  The work-shy Stan has elevated liberty-taking to a fine art and his arch-enemy, Inspector Blake, has no hope of disciplining him.  However, the boot ends up on the other foot when the bus company decides to employ women bus drivers.  With his job and love life now in peril Stan enlists the help of his faithful conductor Jack to discredit the new female drivers.  Meanwhile, life in the Butler household is more strained than ever now that Stan's sister Olive is expecting her first baby...