Car Trouble ** (1986, Julie Walters, Ian Charleson, Vincent Riotta, Stratford Johns, Hazel O’Connor, Dave Hill) – Classic Movie Review 9870

Director David Green’s 1986 Car Trouble is a bizarre, wacky little British comedy of frustration, which tries hard to raise laughs, and sometimes succeeds, and should probably be cherished a little since it comes from the mid-80s when this was a threatened genre.

Jacqueline Sprong (Julie Walters)’s wimpy husband Gerald (Ian Charleson) forbids her to drive their new dream Jaguar car, but she gets locked up inside it in flagrante with the car salesman, and firemen are called to cut them out.

The excellent stars are very funny and work well together as vulgar caricatures, but they don’t have enough good gags to work on in James Whaley and A J Tipping’s bawdy, only patchily funny script, apparently based on an actual event in London’s Regents Park.

Meat Loaf sings the theme song, ‘Hearts of Fire (Car Trouble)’, written by Lea Maalfrid. Leo Sayer performs Unchained Melody.

Also in the cast are Stratford Johns, Vincent Riotta [Vincenzo Ricotta], Hazel O’Connor, Dave Hill, Anthony O’Donnell, Veronica Clifford, Roger Hume, Laurence Harrington, Vanessa Knox-Mawer, Jeff Hall, Roy Barraclough, and Sheila Bernette.

Tragically Ian Charleson died of AIDS on January 6, 1990, at only 40, just seven weeks after playing Hamlet in Richard Eyre’s production at the Olivier Theatre., London.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9870

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