![]() One of Clement and La Frenais’ philosophies was showing how lags survived by means of ‘little victories’, and this was certainly one of them. Most of the characters and cast from TV were in evidence, including Mr Mackay (Fulton Mackay) and Mr Barrowclough (Brian Wilde, who was later known for playing Foggy Dewhurst in Last Of The Summer Wine), plus Slade Prison’s top dog, Harry Grout (Peter Vaughan, seen most recently as Maester Aemon in Game Of Thrones). The movie also gave us some new inmates for this outing – Rudge (Daniel Peacock, brother of Harry Peacock from Toast Of London) and Oakes (Barrie Rutter) – as well as new warder Mr Beale (Christopher Godwin).Ĭlement and La Frenais use all of them as a way of introducing cinema audiences to the world of Porridge, by having the trio being met by a prison van at a small rural railway station in Cumbria, transferring them to HM Prison Slade – Barrowclough explains to Beale that there’s no town anywhere close to their location, leading to Oakes rather pointedly explaining the warders are just as much prisoners there as the actual inmates themselves. Even though on television Fletch and Godber had both done their time, in this movie version we hopped back a few years, with the film being set before the last series of Porridge, giving us one last chance to see the inmates of Slade serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure. The movie version of Porridge was a co-production between Black Lion Films and Witzend Productions, the latter one being set up by writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (creators of Porridge), along with producer Allan McKeown (who was also married to Tracey Ullman, until his death in 2013). READ MORE: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) – Throwback 30 We’d already seen the return of both Norman Stanley Fletcher and Lennie Godber (Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale respectively) on TV the following year in the sequel, Going Straight, which saw Fletch being released from HM Prison Slade, and trying to earn an honest living, as well as attempting to cope with Godber being in a relationship with Fletch’s daughter Ingrid. One of the later entries in this pantheon was Porridge, which had actually ended on BBC1 in March 1977 after three highly successful series. The odd one has popped up in the years since – such as Absolutely Fabulous or Whoops Apocalypse – but the majority of big screen versions tended to crop up at your local picture house in the period between the first Moon landing and the formation of the Thatcher government. The four young men, as well as Dave's parents, learn to take pride in their heritage while moving forward toward their personal goals.You could be forgiven for thinking that the British film industry in the 1970s was one-third Carry Ons, one-third Hammer horrors, and one-third adaptations of TV sitcoms.įrom Steptoe And Son and The Likely Lads to Are You Being Served?, and On The Buses to Rising Damp, it seems that big screen versions of Britcoms were big business at the box office for more than a decade. ![]() His new sense of identity helps him supplant Mike as leader of the group, as he leads the Cutters to win the Little 500 bike race against the college students. After a heart-to-heart talk with his father (Paul Dooley), Dave decides it is okay just to be Dave Stoller-and to go to college. His fantasy breaks down, however, when the Italian bike team he reveres cheats its way to victory at Dave's expense. Dave also tries to break away from being a Cutter by pretending to be an Italian exchange student, a ruse that helps him charm an IU co-ed (Robyn Douglass). The movie is indeed about "breaking away." Dave, Moocher, and Cyril pursue jobs, girlfriends, and entrance to college-all of which threaten to break them away from the group that Mike leads with an iron fist. These odd bedfellows have agreed, according to Cyril, "to waste the rest of their lives together." ![]() Cyril (Daniel Stern) is witty but gangly and Moocher (Jackie Earl Haley) is shrewd but short. Dave (Dennis Christopher) dreams of being Italian, adopting their language and bike racing as a way of escaping his lot as a Cutter. The group is led by Mike (Dennis Quaid), a former high school quarterback who is also the group's quarterback. The young men are referred to disdainfully as "Townies" and "Cutters" by the college students at Indiana University ("Cutters" is a reference to their fathers' occupation as stone cutters in the local quarries). Breaking Away is a coming-of-age film about four high school graduates from Bloomington, Indiana who are trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.
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