BULLSHOT

UK, 1983, 88 minutes, Colour.
Alan Shearman, Diz White, Billy Connolly.
Directed by Dick Clement.

Bullshot is a moderately amusing spoof of the Bulldog Drummond stories. These stories by Sapper, with the intrepid British hero detective, were popular in the '20s. There was a series of film adaptations in the '30s and a number of actors have tried their hand in the role, including Walter Pidgeon in the '50s, Richard Johnston in the '60s.

This film looks good. Great attention has been given to decor and costume with a sense of period. The acting of the ensemble, polished by many performances on stage and for television, coheres quite well. The material could have been much cleverer. As it is, it relies often on Carry On style
with broad verbal comedy as well as visual. There is not much subtlety in the film. This detracts from its overall polish.

The film was produced by Ian La Frenais and directed by Dick Clement (a team who worked on many comic films including Otley, To Catch a Spy, Water, as well as Ronnie Barker's series Porridge).

1. An amusing film? Cast and script? The cast working on their own material? Background of stage and television? The producers and director and their work on comedy spoofs?

2. An entertaining spoof: things British, the '20s, World War One, heroes and heroics, creaky melodramatic plots of the time?

3. Sense of style, re-creation of period? Decor, costumes, machines? Enjoyable period re-creation?

4. The character and caricature of Bullshot: his name, war heroics, memories, boredom in peacetime, a new mission, the pursuit of villains, of the heroine, the use of serial style dangers and cliffhangers, resolution, mock heroics?

5. Rose Marie as heroine, the valiant British lady? Her father and his scientific background, the half of the secret, love for Bullshot, disappointment in him, reconciliation?

6. Comic book villains: Count Otto and the send-up of German spies and Prussian villains? Lenya as the seductive villainess? Their range of dastardly deeds?

7. Sets: homes, laboratories, inns, castles, regattas? The final ace, after planes, helicopters, cars etc.?

8. The quality of humour, verbal and visual, wit ? and the criticism that the film was also witless?

9. The purpose of spoofs: in themselves, their comment on the originals, on the period? Laughing at characters and institutions?