Watch Till Death Us Do Part For Free

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

No sooner had the television version of Johnny Speight's controversial B.B.C. sitcom ended - temporarily, as it turned out - than the cast reunited for this feature film spin-off. Interestingly, it sets itself up as a prequel, initially featuring Alf and Else in London's East End during the Forties. We see Alf here as an eccentric patriot, rather than the tyrant bigot he became. Over news reel footage of Nazi tanks he boasts that Hitler is too scared to go to war with Britain. But it happens, and suddenly he is terrified. He believes it won't last long though. His patriotism vanishes the day the call-up papers land on his doormat. The attention to period detail here is marvellous; rationing books, air-raid shelters, doom-filled radio broadcasts, they're all here. Much to his disgust, soldiers are tucking into bacon and eggs while he has to make do with spam. The pub runs out of beer, and Alf cannot fill his pipe with tobacco. Though he manages to stay out of the army by being in a reserved occupation, he has other problems to contend with - Else is pregnant. The second part takes us to 1966; mini-skirts are in fashion, and Alf comes into conflict with his trendy lefty daughter Rita and her 'Scouse git' boyfriend Mike Rawlins. Alf won't let her put 'Vote Labour' posters in his window. This section is not as good as the first, but it is nice to see the circumstances that brought the characters together. There is a hilarious scene at Rita's wedding reception when Alf gets into a fight with Mike's father, a devout Catholic. Amongst the cast is future 'On The Buses' stars Michael Robbins and Bob Grant ( even though the latter has no lines ). Norman Cohen must have liked working in the wartime period as he went on to direct the film version of 'Dad's Army' and 'Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall', based on Spike Milligan's memoirs. Bill Maynard plays 'Bert', Alf's next door neighbour, with whom he conducts conversations whilst on the toilet ( how well I remember outside bogs. Ugh! Cold! ). It is impossible not to feel sorry for Alf as he walks up the street where he has lived for years, now deserted. For many people, this was a reality. Hitler could not destroy the street, but the local council did. The movie ends where it began - in a cinema - with Alf standing as the National Anthem plays, everyone else having gone home.Released in America under the title 'Alf 'n Family' ( presumably to capitalise on the connection with 'All In The Family' ), it was so successful it opened the floodgates for other sitcom-based films such as 'On The Buses' and 'Dad's Army'. A sequel - 'The Alf Garnett Saga' - was made three years later, but it was not a patch on the first.

The Film of the Successful TV series "Till Death us do part" undoubtedly is one of the better TV to Film adaptations. Norman Cohen as mentioned has directed this superbly. (In comparison to Carry On Engalnd you can believe the war situation!) The Whole cast is present from the TV Series which is a bonus in itself. (Of which let down films such as Rising Damp - easier to not do it at all) Warren Mitchell & Dandy Nichols really do play up to expectations.Usual errors within TV-Film adaptations is Recycled Material and/or weak plot lines/jokes. Till death us do part exceeds all these pitfalls and comes out trumps.As Alf would say "bloody marvellous innit!" - and i would attribute that to this film!

One of the first television situation comedies to get the cinema treatment, 'Till Death…' avoids the trap of being just an extended television episode which befalls many other adoptions, by opening out the story. It is more a prequel than merely being the 'film of the show', showing us the history of the Garnett family, from just before the start of the Second World War to the 'present day' of 1969, taking in the 1966 World Cup on it's way.It is the wartime sequence of the movie (it roughly takes up the first 45 minutes of the film) which for me is the highlight of the picture. You really do get a proper sense of time and place. The credit mainly goes to the director, Norman Cohen, who gives what could have been a static television-style play, a real cinematic treatment.The script by Johnny Speight is generally excellent and (as far as I know) isn't just a re-packaging of old television material. Ironically the movie falters when it moves 'twenty or so years later' and moves into the more familiar setting of the series That said, Rita's wedding is a memorable set-piece, moving between drama and comedy (and very uncomfortable viewing at times, due to Garnett's racism). It's Mitchell's movie, of course. It's a credit to the actor's talents that that you can't help liking Alf, despite the fact that Speight's script constantly under-cuts and mocks the character.It's an oddly bitter-sweet movie, as a community which had survived the Blitz is eventually disbanded, with the Garnett family exiled to a bleak modern concrete tower block. There is a real sense of loss here and it is this which places it a few notches up from the normal television spin-off. It's a pity that this movie will always be over-shadowed by its more controversial small screen incarnation, as it deserves a wider audience. It also showcases a rather brilliant title song, by Ray Davies, which any fan of The Kinks should check out.

Alf Garnett is one of TV's finest - and most misunderstood - comedy creations. Alf's brought to life by socialist writer Johnny Speight and tremendous comic actor Warren Mitchell. Mitchell is Jewish, yet Garnett is a blistering satire of right-wing bigotry.The film version of Till Death Do Us Part is superior to the misguided sequel In Sickness and in Health, though slightly behind the '65 TV original. The first half of the movie lacks the ethical counterpoint of his Labour-voting ("Randy Scouse git!") son-in-law, yet still scores with Mitchell's classic study of loud-mouth stupidity.The joke is Alf himself, not his views, and seeing him denounce Hitler's fascism then, in almost the same breath, rally against "Eye-ties" and "coloureds" is a fine parody of small-minded ignorance. This is a man who gleefully cries, "get a bit of action now" at the outbreak of the Second World War. A man who proffers "Ugly, innit?" at the birth of his own daughter. On being told his daughter's mother-in-law goes to church every Sunday, he rants, "I said I was religious - I didn't say I was a bloody religious maniac!" Often it's the way he tells 'em. Other Alf philosophies include repressing student demonstrations with a plan to "bung that lot out to work at fourteen, same as they done in the old days". "Wasn't that bad," he says about Hitler, when deciding, with hindsight, that we should have joined forces with the Third Reich, "Had his faults."Alf's the man who has an opinion on everything, no matter how ill informed, and regularly expresses it, preferably in a crowded pub, to anyone that will listen. Alf's only flexibility in his views is in having a photograph of Winston Churchill ready to take the place of Neville Chamberlain's when he resigns.This form of satire takes risks and can be shocking - during the film Alf criticises the calibre of the Japanese after Hiroshima and insults the Pope. "The coon's got a sense o'humour" he declares of a young girl before collapsing in a drunken heap and plastering his daughter with beer at her wedding reception. A documentary on Mitchell's life saw him recount a tale of a man who approached him in the street, praising him for "having a go at them coons." Mitchell's response was "we were actually having a go at idiots like you." That said, while an elitist amusement, the fact that this material became such a mainstream hit means that real-life bigots will ultimately see it as a vindication of their views, making it questionable entertainment.Working a half-hour sitcom into a feature-length narrative is inevitably hit and miss, though Speight must be praised for doing something new with the format rather than just crafting a triple-length episode. Where the series saw Alf tirading against 60s counterculture, the first half of the movie is a kind of pre-story, with Alf and Else in the middle of the blitz. The film's recreation of 40s England is well realised, even if editing in stock footage of aircraft disrupts the illusion somewhat. Direction by Norman Cohen is also often cleverer than you might expect for this type of material.At the halfway mark we get a "nearly 20 years later" caption, taking us up to the present date and the series' timeline. A three-and-a-half-minute dream sequence in the final stages may seem like filler, but it was good enough for Chaplin in The Kid, so it gets by here. Maybe the problem with the central character is that Mitchell makes him so likeable in spite of himself. Some famous names offer support in the film - Brian Blessed, Bill Maynard, Geoffrey Hughes, Anthony Booth and Frank Thornton - but, other than Booth, none of them get much of a look in, this being Mitchell's film all the way.