I understand that there was a real problem getting this film a theatrical release and that it is more a mid-sixties film than a late 60s one, not being released in the UK until 1969. I can understand the reluctance of distributers. With the best will in the world and considering that this may have been a heart felt effort to produce a European style thought provoking drama, it is hard to see this as anything other than a misguided and pretentious, vanity project. It starts disastrously with a reunion with a working class chum (who over does it enormously) with whom because he is now rich and famous somehow cannot relate. Plus the unforgivable homoerotic messy food prank in the posh restaurant. Things go from bad to worse, I don't know whether Shelagh Delaney's script was scrapped or that this drivel really was hers, either way the only saving grace are those fantastic Lancashire city and landscape shots. The views of what I assume to be the Manchester ship canal an added bonus, as for the rest, no thanks. Oh and the miscasting of Liza Minnelli is inexplicable, she is dreadful.
Review of Charlie Bubbles
