Director Lindsay Anderson and screenwriter David Sherwin continue their story of Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), who played the rebellious school boy in the 1969 film IF and the go-getter coffee salesman in the 1973 film O LUCKY MAN! In BRITANNIA HOSPITAL, Mick Travis is now an undercover investigative TV reporter in another .. Read more
| Starring | Leonard Rossiter, Graham Crowden, Joan Plowright, Malcolm McDowell |
|---|---|
| Director | Lindsay Anderson |
| Genres | Comedy |
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Director Lindsay Anderson and screenwriter David Sherwin continue their story of Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), who played the rebellious school boy in the 1969 film IF and the go-getter coffee salesman in the 1973 film O LUCKY MAN! In BRITANNIA HOSPITAL, Mick Travis is now an undercover investigative TV reporter in another allegorical story of the decline of the West. Set in a large, 500-year-old public hospital, BRITANNIA HOSPITAL is a dark, scatter-shot, Swiftian satire of the class conflicts in pre-Thatcher England. The hospital, staffed by megalomaniacal doctors, is in a state of near anarchy as its administration prepares for a visit from The Queen. Striking workers only allow "croakers"--patients near death--into the hospital, the kitchen staff refuses to prepare food until union leaders are bought off with promises of O.B.E.'s, and the head surgeon (Graham Crowden) conducts, with public funds, expensive, deranged experiments, like inventing a modern Dr. Frankenstein, while poor patients are deprived of basic services. On the day of the Royal visit, busloads of protesters arrive, and after a battle with riot police, attempt to prevent the Royal ceremony.
Working in a less apocalyptic and surreal style than the style of O LUCKY MAN!, but still more fantastic than the American comedy THE HOSPITAL, Anderson and Sherwin try to anchor this extremely black comedy to a somewhat realistic setting while still aiming at nothing less than a comic indictment of all the ills of Western culture.
| Starring | Leonard Rossiter, Graham Crowden, Joan Plowright, Malcolm McDowell, Jill Bennett, Marsha Hunt, Robin Askwith, Arthur Lowe |
|---|---|
| Director | Lindsay Anderson |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 52 mins |
| Certificate |  |
| Genres | Comedy |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | Production year: 1982 To Rent: DVD: not available To Buy: DVD: 19 Jul 2004 |
Looking as crummy as a Carry On at the end of its tether, this intended lampoon of the state of the nation never warms up and can only fire off stale jokes in all directions while repelling the eye with its Frankenstein scenes.
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Rule Britannia!
You shouldn't mistake this for a jolly hospital comedy in the grand British tradition of 'Carry on' and 'Doctor in the House'. The plethora ... read more »
[Highly rated reviewer]
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An Unfortunate Let Down
The second in the line of sequels to If, 'Britannia Hospital,' looks at the class conflict in a more obvious and more boring way. The message is lost ... read more »
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What a piece of work...
Thanks to LoveFilm I just learned that the third part of Lindsay Anderson's If trilogy exists. I've been a fan of the first movie and O' Lucky Man ... read more »
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A bad case
The third in a loose trilogy featuring the Mick Travis character lacks the anarchic precision of 'if...' and the free-wheeling, free-loving nature of &#... read more »
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