Pretty Good

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A Masterpiece!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

... I have been 'scammed' and I really don't understand the why of this except apparently scammers hope you will be a fool and give them your credit card etc. details... it is a different world now comedy wise and only the British seem to produce good comedy but even the Brits although way ahead of American stuff lately have produced "DocMartin".. lovely understated acting from Martin Clunes and the production team. Set in Cornwall it has the beauty of the actual scenery to add to the excellence of this series.

Seriously, as dumb an American as I am, all it simply takes is one to take a look at "Brit. Humour, then watch Fawlty Towers; it becomes easier to separate the former: ("Brit Humor") from Fawlty Towers; (the latter) one begins to separate in their mind; British Humor vs. pure humor. Pure unadulterated humor. One that runs amok. Runs rampant, twisting and turning. Branching. Swirling like tendrils of ivy on a drab, lime stained brick wall. This is Fawlty Towers to me. (Duh). Basil Fawlty: (a main character) owns a hotel. [(Much like a particular twisted individual in real life, who owned a "hotel" (murder, albeit) in Chicago, Illinois, (...on that turd mound across the pond)...(for some) back in the late 1800s'].Basil lures his victims in to his web of torture, by posing as an eccentric innkeeper by the shore. As smart as some in the cast think they are, how little do they know just how far Basil will go to brutally and unmercifully bully, insult, defame, humiliate, taunt, and torture all he allows in his web, and just how stupid they really are for not seeing it. Except one.That tart of a maid under Basil's employ. Yes! She also takes great pleasure by allowing and enabling the borderline dissociative, sociopath, ASD riddled, word salad spewing, worm brained, multiple personality disorder afflicted, severely emasculated, sexually repressed and frustrated Basil to take his great pleasure torturing the guests, (damn the collateral damage)in some sort of kinky humor fetish thing the both are afflicted with; partaking, if you will, in some S&M 'humoric intercourse' with each other, taking it all the way to the brink of an endorphins soaked ecstasy, (because it is all about sex and/or the lack thereof, mind you).Yes. Simply put: All are victims of some nut job who gets his rocks off by messing around with his staff, family and guests to the point of rage quitting, or becoming a captive with Stockholm Syndrome I guess,as they become just as mad as a hatter as himself.Yes. You will laugh. Laugh yourself retarded.Something you want to watch...?

A genius British TV comedy series that unfortunately lasted only 12 episodes. John Cleese was brilliant as the rude and incompetent hotel owner Basil Fawlty. As the story goes, Cleese came up with the idea for the Basil Fawlty character and the series, when he encountered a real ill-mannered hotel owner while staying at hotel in Torquay, when he was with Monty Python. The show ultimately became a big hit with both British and American TV audiences, and I wish, like many other people, that the show had continued a little while longer. Along with Cleese's character, we also find a great ensemble of supporting characters, including Basil's nagging and sometimes lazy wife Sybil, who, unlike Basil, often handled the hotel guests in a more professional and polite manner. The inept but well meaning immigrant waiter/bellhop Manuel and the capable waitress/desk clerk Polly, who was played by Cleese's then real-life wife Connie Booth. Booth also served as co-writer of the series alongside her husband Cleese. Other supporting characters were permanent hotel residents, the elderly and sometimes senile Major and elderly sisters Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby. In the second series we also see the addition of the hotel Chef Terry.

Like 'The Young Ones', 'Fawlty Towers' was a wonderfully funny and well-written sitcom broadcast by BBC2 which, although very popular, did not hang around on our screens for very long. The idea for the show came from John Cleese's experience of staying at The Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, ran by the late Donald Sinclair, a man who was so rude as to defy description.When Cleese penned the 'No Ill Feeling' episode of 'Doctor At Large', which featured Timothy Bateson as an ill-mannered hotelier, he based Bateson's character on Sinclair. With the episode a ratings hit, it was clear to Cleese that there was potential to build a sitcom around the episode's characters and setting. And 'lo 'Fawlty Towers' was born.It was all about hotel owner Basil Fawlty, a conceited, gangly, upper class twit who makes no effort whatsoever to hide his contempt for the guests. Prunella Scales plays his wife Sybil who despite her diminutive stature can strike fear into her lanky husband by just snapping his name at him. His staff include inept Spanish waiter Manuel ( Andrew Sachs ) whose command of English is almost non-existent and Art Student Polly Sherman ( played by Cleese's then wife, the gorgeous Connie Booth, with whom he wrote the show with ) who serves as a waitress and housekeeper. The late Brian Hall was introduced in series two as Terry the chef. The permanent residents of the hotel are the senile Major Gowen ( the late Ballard Berkeley ) and dotty old ladies - Miss. Gatsby ( Renee Roberts ) and Miss. Tibbs ( Gilly Flower ). Guests who came and went over the show's run were selectively deaf battle axe Mrs. Richards ( Joan Sanderson ), obnoxious spoon salesman Mr. Hutchinson ( Bernard Cribbins ) and shyster Lord Melbury ( Michael Gwynn ). David Kelly appeared in one episode as cowboy builder O'Reilly.With good scripts, wonderfully crafted characters and a superb cast, 'Fawlty Towers' deserved to be a hit, and was. It almost didn't make it though. The ratings for the first series ( which was broadcast in 1975 ) were terrible ( some critics, who remembered Cleese from 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', blasted him for 'selling out' ), though fortunately, ratings from repeats saved it from extinction. The second series did not arrive until 1979. This for me was when the show really hit the nail, however Connie Booth's reluctance to carry on working with Cleese again meant there was no chance of a third series, though a specially filmed sketch featuring Cleese once again as Basil was used to kick-start the first episode of 'Not The Nine O'Clock News'.The exterior shots used for 'Fawlty Towers' were that of the Woodburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire. Sadly, it no longer exists today as it was destroyed by fire in 1991.To conclude, 'Fawlty Towers', like 'Porridge', is a true classic which remarkably has stood the test of time rather well.