Three or so years after a brief nuclear “misunderstanding” destroyed the world and killed most of the population, the remaining British are still very, very British. Father (Arthur Lowe), Mother (Mona Washbourne), and Penelope (Rita Tushingham) live on an underground train, which is powered by a man peddling a bike. When Father finds Penelope has been seeing Alen (Richard Warwick) in another car, he decides they should travel to the surface to make a proper home in the rubble. Elsewhere, Lord Fortnum (Ralph Richardson) is undergoing difficult to define medical problems and goes to see “Doctor” Bules Martin (Michael Hordern), who sits on a huge pile of discarded boots. As they travel about, they are repeatedly told to “move along” by the police (Peter Cook, Dudley Moore) who float about in a balloon. They all have to fear being mutated by radiation into a sitting room or cupboard.
This may be the most British movie ever made. It’s like Monty Python, but without concern for punch lines. There’s little plot and only the most cursory awareness of sense. Call it stiff-upper lipped English absurdist satire. That makes this either quite funny, boring, or just weird, depending on your interest in and tolerance for this brand of humor.
Written by Spike Milligan as a one-act play, the theme is the overwhelming, never ceasing, stupidity of man. Although everything has changed, everyone carries on with the same foolishness that they always had, and they always will. Call it two parts cynicism and one part depression. The characters behavior isn’t just dim, but insane. With between 20 and 30 survivors, there’s still a queen, a man is named Prime Minster due to the size of his “inside leg,” and the police tell people to move along when there’s nothing there and no place to move along to. The doctor asks for a medical card before filling out a prescription for food, and a death certificate takes precedence over the person sitting there talking.
The dialog fits a world where a person might (and does) turn into a parrot at any moment.
“Didn’t you have a mummy and a daddy?”
“No, my brother had them.”
“That’s a bit unfair. You could have had one each.”
“I was in the Army, actually. I’m a Captain.”
“Oh, I say! What regiment?”
“Oh, we didn’t know, owing to the Official Secrets Act.”
The problem with plotless, gag-type films is the ending is bound to be anticlimactic. The Bed Sitting Room doesn’t reach an ending, but fades away, but I enjoyed the journey. It’s thought-inspiring, if not thoughtful, and unlike most films you’re likely to run across.