One day some clever movie club organizer will realize that he could make a very enjoyable evening of two films dealing with an event from 1947. They are ROYAL WEDDING and A PRIVATE FUNCTION. Both deal with events tied to the marriage of Philip Mountbatten (today Prince Philip) and Princess Elizabeth Windsor (today Queen Elizabeth II). The 1951 film musical (with Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, and Keenan Wynn) has a dignified, picture postcard view of the actual events in Westminster Abbey the day the future Queen and her future consort married. This was to be expected on both sides of the Atlantic in 1951, as Sarah Churchill's father (who probably gave the film his blessing and cooperation) was Sir Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England in World War II and now again Prime Minister until 1955.
Leave it to the British to undercut the respect an American based production on the royal marriage created. For 33 years after ROYAL WEDDING, along came A PRIVATE FUNCTION. Unlike ROYAL WEDDING it does not deal with events in the British capital, and it does not not have characters with some type of fictional prestige (Astaire and Powell are a brother and sister performing act like Fred and Adele Astaire years before, and Powell is being romanced by Lawford - a member of the aristocracy). No, A PRIVATE FUNCTION was about how a small coterie of local snobs in a midland city of England decided to properly celebrate the first "return of glamor" to Britain after World War II.
In this midland city the nobs (Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, John Normington) are planning a massive celebration for only those with proper social credentials (no working class types, except for a butcher, no dark skinned types, no Jews). The central key to their plans is an illegal pig. A what? Well, it is still a period of rationing in Post-War England, and the black market of meat is very strong. A special pig has been housed and bred by the butcher (Pete Posthlewaite) illegally at a farmer's secret shed (the farmer, by the way, is invited too). Posthlewaite has been improving his own business by tipping off the local meat inspector (Bill Paterson) about black market acts by competitors, but Paterson is aware that no butcher is above suspicion, and he is also aware of rumors concerning a super feast with illegal pork being planned.
Into this mix comes a chiropodist (Michael Palin), his socially starved and pretentious wife (Maggie Smith) and her mother (Liz Smith). Palin is trying to get his position in town set by renting a store front, but one of the nobs is Elliott who resents competition from Palin. So Palin finds the going tough (the deal for the store front falls through, and his car and traveling chiropractic shed are purposely wrecked by Elliott). But in repairing his car Palin is near the farm the pig is hidden at. Subsequently, after another argument with Smith about their precarious position in the town, Palin steals the pig. And all hell breaks lose.
The social nobs and the butcher and farmer are trying to find the missing porker. Without it their plans are in ruin. The meat inspector is aware of a possible illegal pig and starts prying into all kinds of places. His lack of a sense of smell due to a war injury prevents his inquiries from going the full way. Palin and Smith struggle to hide the pig in their home - and discover how filthy pigs really are. As for poor Liz Smith, she is repeatedly told that she is imagining the foul odors and pig refuse around the house - that it is proof she is going senile. She ends up frightened, repeating "No pig, no pig!!" as reassurance that she is not mad.
Eventually things do right themselves out - though not totally the way all the players hope or wanted.
Denholm Elliott was always a fine actor, and here plays possibly his most obnoxious character - a snob, a racist, a malicious competitor, and one who sees nothing wrong with farting while having lunch in a friend's house. Maggie Smith makes an art of pretension, ever since her finest role as Jean Brodie, but here it is undercut by the economic realities presented by Palin. Michael Palin is a basically good person married to an unrealistic woman, and fighting a coterie of really nasty types. His kidnapping of the pig happens to be a long term disaster, but one cheers his short term victory. Of the others in the film, my favorite is Richard Griffiths, who turns out to be a decent person too - and one who finds a new common purpose with a better friend than Elliott.
When it came out in 1984 A PRIVATE FUNCTION was considered one of several films that seem to revive the great Ealing Comedies of the 1950s. It certainly deserves comparison to those classics, and I urge you to try to see it some time...with or without a pet pig.
Leave it to the British to undercut the respect an American based production on the royal marriage created. For 33 years after ROYAL WEDDING, along came A PRIVATE FUNCTION. Unlike ROYAL WEDDING it does not deal with events in the British capital, and it does not not have characters with some type of fictional prestige (Astaire and Powell are a brother and sister performing act like Fred and Adele Astaire years before, and Powell is being romanced by Lawford - a member of the aristocracy). No, A PRIVATE FUNCTION was about how a small coterie of local snobs in a midland city of England decided to properly celebrate the first "return of glamor" to Britain after World War II.
In this midland city the nobs (Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, John Normington) are planning a massive celebration for only those with proper social credentials (no working class types, except for a butcher, no dark skinned types, no Jews). The central key to their plans is an illegal pig. A what? Well, it is still a period of rationing in Post-War England, and the black market of meat is very strong. A special pig has been housed and bred by the butcher (Pete Posthlewaite) illegally at a farmer's secret shed (the farmer, by the way, is invited too). Posthlewaite has been improving his own business by tipping off the local meat inspector (Bill Paterson) about black market acts by competitors, but Paterson is aware that no butcher is above suspicion, and he is also aware of rumors concerning a super feast with illegal pork being planned.
Into this mix comes a chiropodist (Michael Palin), his socially starved and pretentious wife (Maggie Smith) and her mother (Liz Smith). Palin is trying to get his position in town set by renting a store front, but one of the nobs is Elliott who resents competition from Palin. So Palin finds the going tough (the deal for the store front falls through, and his car and traveling chiropractic shed are purposely wrecked by Elliott). But in repairing his car Palin is near the farm the pig is hidden at. Subsequently, after another argument with Smith about their precarious position in the town, Palin steals the pig. And all hell breaks lose.
The social nobs and the butcher and farmer are trying to find the missing porker. Without it their plans are in ruin. The meat inspector is aware of a possible illegal pig and starts prying into all kinds of places. His lack of a sense of smell due to a war injury prevents his inquiries from going the full way. Palin and Smith struggle to hide the pig in their home - and discover how filthy pigs really are. As for poor Liz Smith, she is repeatedly told that she is imagining the foul odors and pig refuse around the house - that it is proof she is going senile. She ends up frightened, repeating "No pig, no pig!!" as reassurance that she is not mad.
Eventually things do right themselves out - though not totally the way all the players hope or wanted.
Denholm Elliott was always a fine actor, and here plays possibly his most obnoxious character - a snob, a racist, a malicious competitor, and one who sees nothing wrong with farting while having lunch in a friend's house. Maggie Smith makes an art of pretension, ever since her finest role as Jean Brodie, but here it is undercut by the economic realities presented by Palin. Michael Palin is a basically good person married to an unrealistic woman, and fighting a coterie of really nasty types. His kidnapping of the pig happens to be a long term disaster, but one cheers his short term victory. Of the others in the film, my favorite is Richard Griffiths, who turns out to be a decent person too - and one who finds a new common purpose with a better friend than Elliott.
When it came out in 1984 A PRIVATE FUNCTION was considered one of several films that seem to revive the great Ealing Comedies of the 1950s. It certainly deserves comparison to those classics, and I urge you to try to see it some time...with or without a pet pig.