intelearts
Michael Palin was always the less acerbic of the Python troupe and here as in the wonderful TV series "Ripping Yarns" (that he had made three years earlier) he captures perfectly the quintessential Britishness that is Anglicanism and the clergy life and the British classes at play in Victorian Britain.The plot is classic: an Anglican missionary returns from India to wed and is sent to help fallen women find redemption in the less salubrious parts of the East End.Throughout there are a number of wonderful touches, Denholm Elliot's Bishop in the classic Bishop's stove hat with rosette and strings, looking exactly like he should be on the steps of Christchruch, the hunting party with it's upper class twittiness, and the wonderful filing system's for letters of his fiancée Deborah Firtzbanks etc; As with all of Palin's fiction the humour is affectionate and often silly but never barbed or cruel and rarely surreal. He obviously has a deep love for the surrounding, the era, and the values - and there is much to love about the time.With excellent settings (Cliveden etc;) and good costuming plus very fine lighting and editing this is no lightweight production; but it is the wonderful array of British actors of that generation, Trevor Howard, Michael Hordern, and Maggie Smith, with her impossibly brilliant figure, that steal the show.All in all, the very essence of the British: a brilliant gentle civilsed comedy that is full of touches that linger on....
harryfielder
THE MISSIONARY…Director Richard Loncraine… Cast Inc…Michael Palin…Maggie Smith…Trevor Howard… We are filming down at Hoxton Market and our base is a pub I used to sing in twenty years before. It's only two minutes from my old swimming pool. (The canal). The 1st A.D. told me he was giving me a line to say to Mr Palin but it wouldn't be 'til late afternoon and would I like to relax at the base. (Is he kidding me) I have a walk up and down the market to see if any of the old faces are still about. I soon bump into Jimmy Dix who runs the butchers shop in the market and we were at school together.. (This man is a dead ringer for Oliver Reed) ''You still singing Aitch''. '' No Jim I'm in the film game'' They're all poofs in that game''. ''Not all of them Jim'' We went on to chat about old times then Jim decided he fancied a swift half with his long lost mate.. (Me) The afternoon sped by and when Jimmy decided to get up and sing a song in the pub (there was no music), I decided it was time to go to work.. When I get to the hall we're filming in the 1st A.D. tells me it'll be another couple of hours 'til they get to my bit and would I like to go for a tea break. (Now a strong coffee break is more what I'm after) I drink a few cups of coffee and wander down to the canal to have a look around. It's still there that big warehouse that Hitchcock used back in the black and white days. After a ten minute kip on a bench I make my way to the hall just in time to do my bit.. I say the words (Don't fall over the furniture) then it's ''Cut and print'' One Take.. If only they was all as easy as this. Bye, Bye Jimmy Dix and it was a good afternoon. Best wishes Aitch See Harry Fielder on Google
James Hitchcock
To celebrate my 500th review for IMDb, I turn to another of my favourite films. The Reverend Charles Fortescue is an Edwardian clergyman who has spent ten years working as a missionary in Africa. He returns to England and is asked by the Bishop of London to run a Mission to Fallen Women in the East End. Fortescue sets about his new task with vigour, supported by a generous donation from the wealthy Lady Ames, and the Mission proves a great success. Suspicions begin to grow, however, that Fortescue is offering the young women of the Mission something more than spiritual comfort, and that Lady Ames's interest in his work is motivated by something other than philanthropic zeal.This is one of a number of films made by the former Pythons since their partnership came to an end; Michael Palin not only wrote the script but also appears as Fortescue. Several of these films show the clear influence of the famous Ealing comedies, and it is obvious that some at least of the Pythons must have a deep admiration for that series, even though the style of their early comedy was very different. "A Fish Called Wanda", which starred Palin and John Cleese, was directed by the Ealing veteran Charles Crichton, and there are clear thematic links between "A Private Function" (Palin again) and "Passport to Pimlico" and between "Splitting Heirs" (Cleese and Eric Idle) and "Kind Hearts and Coronets".Like "Kind Hearts…..", "The Missionary" is set among the Edwardian upper classes. It does not have any direct thematic links to any of the Ealing films, but does have a similar style of humour, updated to suit the changing tastes of the eighties. Jokes about sex, for example, can be much more direct than would have been possible in the forties or fifties. This is not, however, a simple satire on Edwardian attitudes to sex and religion. It is a very different film to the ghastly "Best House in London", which was set in the Victorian period and took the line that prostitution is all jolly good rollicking fun."The Missionary", in fact, is a comedy about sex which (unlike most British comedies on that subject) avoids smuttiness and a comedy about religion which avoids the standard line that religious believers are all either fools or hypocrites. Although there is some fun at the expense of the Bishop, the film does capture the ethos of Edwardian "Muscular Christianity" with its progressive social attitudes and emphasis on good works. Prostitution is shown as a social evil because it leads to the exploitation and degradation of working-class women, and the Church's opposition to it is seen as both morally justified and socially progressive.Palin plays Fortescue as a mixture of ardent social reformer and holy innocent, a kindly, well-intentioned man whose good intentions reflect many of the assumptions of his age. (He assumes, for example, that the African children he is teaching need to know all about English mediaeval history). He ends up sleeping with the young women of the Mission almost by accident- they all fall in love with him because he is the only man who has ever shown them kindness or has treated them as anything other than sex objects. Fortescue is not, however, the most comic character in the film; indeed, for much of the time he appears to be playing straight man to the others, who all have their own eccentricities. There is the aristocratic nymphomaniac Lady Ames and her ferociously reactionary husband, played by Trevor Howard as the comic equivalent of his Lord Cardigan in "The Charge of the Light Brigade". (The use of the hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" provides another link between the two films). There is their comically inept butler Slatterthwaite, forever unable to navigate his way round their palatial stately home.Denholm Elliott plays the Bishop as hearty and obsessed with sport, especially boxing and cricket. I first saw "The Missionary" in the cinema with two college friends and we were amused by the resemblance of the Bishop to one of our lecturers, who also peppered his conversation with cricketing clichés like "batting on a sticky wicket". Elliott and Maggie Smith, who plays Lady Ames, were later to star with Palin in "A Private Function". My favourite performance, however, came from the lovely Phoebe Nicholls as Fortescue's terminally naïve fiancée Deborah, totally unable to understand the concept of "fallen women". ("Women who have hurt their knees?"). She also has a passion for neatness and order and has devised a fantastically intricate filing system for keeping track of her fiancé's love-letters.Palin had already proved himself to be a great comedian; in "The Missionary" and "A Private Function" he also proved himself a great comic actor, just as Cleese had done in "Fawlty Towers". The two things are not necessarily the same; there are several British comedians- Dudley Moore being a good example- who never seemed as funny on the big screen as they did in their stage and TV routines. Palin was later also to prove himself a very good serious actor in "American Friends", another film in which he plays a likable Anglican clergyman. It is interesting that he should have twice given a sympathetic portrayal of men of the cloth- perhaps the Pythons were not all as anti-religious as those who criticised them for their "Life of Brian" assumed.Besides some wonderful performances, "The Missionary" also has some great lines and together with "A Private Function" it is the best of the post-Python comedies and one of the funniest British films of the eighties. 10/10.
dafishhead
I won't detail the plot as that's been covered rather extensively in the other comments. If you refrain from expecting a Monty Python movie, you'll find it much easier to enjoy The Missionary. It's not a Python movie. It's not outrageously funny though it does have some very funny moments, some hilarious. Most of the humor however is much more subtle, possibly too much so for many viewers. A great cast.
