Product Description

Famed British comedian John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda) leads a hilarious ensemble in this bawdy military satire that is lethally funny (The New York Times)! The year is 1948, and Major Giles Flack (Cleese) has been ordered to organize a song-and-dance unit to entertain the beleaguered British troops in Southeast Asia. But while he's transforming the front line into a chorus line, his entertainers are being used as a cover operation to sell illegal arms to Malaysian guerillas!Will Major Flack's musical band of brothers be able to raise military morale while dodging bullets and shrapnel or will their show become the ultimate bomb?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73980 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com
Hey, troops, let's put on a show! Befuddled, uptight John Cleese reluctantly commands the Song and Dance Unit South East Asia, a motley troupe of barnstorming performers who dress in drag to entertain the commie-fighting British jungle troops in 1948 Malaysia. Based on the satirical stage revue by Peter Nichols (Georgy Girl), the oddball mix of Carry On farce, military buffoonery, and backstage shenanigans makes an awkward transition to the screen. Behind the double entendres and broad gay caricatures (especially Dennis Quilley, who embraces his flamboyance with gusto as the unit's musical director and star performer) rumbles a murky political satire of the British Empire in decline. The idea is better than the execution, but even as a curiosity it has its moments. Don't skip the credits--a musical reprise with Cleese's only song and dance: a gangly legged goof that draws upon his time with the Department of Silly Walks. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Amusing and Acerbic...But Something Of A Mess
This is a movie which at times is very funny and very black, worth watching and for some worth having, but which also can't seem to decide which sacred cows it wants to gore or which messages it wants to deliver.

It's 1948 and the British are fighting a Communist insurrection in the Malayan jungles. For the British Army in Malaya, WWII has hardly stopped. Acting Captain Terri Dennis (Denis Quilley) heads up a ragtag group of inept soldiers whose job it is to improve morale by staging song and dance shows for the troops. Since there are few women available, most of the troupe doubles in full drag, including -- with great enthusiasm and queenly putdowns -- Dennis. The troupe is under the command of Major Giles Flack (John Cleese), a Bible quoting anti-communist Army man who is more inept than the soldiers under him. However, it seems British arms are being stolen from a depot and being sold to the guerillas. The ringleader is an Army sergeant. One thing leads to another and soon the troupe is on a tour of remote outposts in the northern jungle. Unbeknownst to them, they are transporting one last big haul of rifles and ammo.

Privates on Parade started life as an acerbic British review that interspersed dark themes with music hall pastiches. And that's what we have here. The troupe led by Quilley puts on songs and dances that parody Fred and Ginger, Marlene Dietrich, marching production numbers and Vera Lynn-type icky ballads ("When the shadows creep, over fields of sheep, with a love that's deep, you and I will go to sleep, doing all those little things we used to do."). The dialogue is full of sexual innuendo, bawdy one-liners and gay stereotyping, especially in Denis Quilley's great performance. But in between the numbers are increasingly bitter messages targeting the British empire, the behavior of British officers, the repression of gay love, the hypocrisy of some men toward women, and so on. I suspect that, like Oh, What a Lovely War, it was a far more effective stage review than it turned out to be a movie.

Denis Quilley is the heart of the movie as the flamboyant queen with a great heart and second-rate talent. He's the lead in drag in several of the musical numbers and is first-rate. John Cleese does John Cleese, and he's a welcome part of the movie. I suspect he took the role because he liked the point of view, and the producers (including George Harrison) wanted him for some star power. Among the soldiers in the troupe is David Bamber playing a somewhat talented young soldier whose companion, a rough-speaking but funny sergeant, is killed in a fire-fight. I remember Bamber for his wonderful performance as the oily Mr. Collins who lives for Lady Catherine de Bourgh's condescension in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice.

The movie is something of a curiosity piece. I liked it, but it never seemed able to settle down and pick its targets.

Nobody's Perfect
Peter Nichols wrote plays about damaged people to get his point across that everyone is damaged in some way. In "Joe Egg" a married couple deals with raising a severely retarded child. "The National Health" depicts hospital patients who are as emotionally damaged as they are physically damaged. "Privates On Parade" presents the British version of a USO troop touring Southeast Asia in 1948. In all three plays the characters escape their troubles in song-and-dance routines. The film of "Privates" isn't as good as the actual play, but it is wonderful that it was filmed. They got John Cleese (fresh out of Monty Python and still falling back on his old routines) to play the commanding officer, but he is almost too competent to symbolize utterly oblivious authority. Most of the unit is gay, with Denis Quilley reprising his stage role of outrageous queen/star/director Terri Dennis. in the most touching number, "Sunnyside Lane," the two older men (even though one has a wife waiting in England, they have pledged to reenlist to stay together) sing of their shared happiness. This is a very funny film, perfect for any fan of amateur theatrics.

Wonderful Film!!
What a pleasant surprise this turned out to be! I only picked the film up because I wanted to start seeing Handmade Films' output (being a huge George Harrison fan, I learned of his film producing credits, and wanted to check them out), so I knew nothing about it, and what little I had heard was mixed to negative. So I was expecting a lowbrow, stupid, mildly amusing comedy.

What I found instead was a genuine little gem of a movie, far better than anything I anticipated. Though not a really laugh-out-loud comedy at first, it really draws you in with its characters and fine performances, and the interplay between the men makes you feel welcome and right at home with these boys. I can't actually recall any of the names of the actors, they were all British actors I'd never heard of, but they were remarkable.

There were a lot of what people would call gay stereotypes, but the writing and actors create fully fleshed-out and realized characters, so it never feels forced, or like gay humor for the sake of gay humor. We're not laughing at these dudes in drag, we're laughing with them, because they're having a ball through it all! The scenes where they're sitting backstage taking off make-up, and the dialogue exchanged, is fascinating (this coming from someone who's been involved with the theater for many years now, so it touched a special place in me, I suppose). I may be making the movie out to be about gay pride or whatnot, but it really isn't. It's about a troop of entertainers during the war, most of which happen to be gay, hence the cross-dressing musical numbers, which are a real hoot!

But the film also has a serious side to it; like all great war comedies, there is a touch of melancholy on all the proceedings. True, it isn't handled as subtly or as deftly as, say, M*A*S*H or Catch-22, but when bad things happen in this movie, you truly feel sad. It's never the same old obligatory dramatic scenes to move the plot along just so we can get to the next joke. Again, great script here. It would be wonderful to do the play someday.

Like I said, there aren't a great many laugh-out-loud "muy ha ha" moments; this is a film where the characters themselves laugh a lot, and you're laughing or at least smiling right along with them. And there are a great many little touches sprinkled throughout the movie to really bring it to the next level. Jessica Christ, do check it out!