Nearest and Dearest ** (1972, Hylda Baker, Jimmy Jewel, Joe Gladwin, Edward Malin, Madge Hindle, Yootha Joyce) – Classic Movie Review 13,035

Hylda Baker, Jimmy Jewel and Yootha Joyce are the making of the saucy 1972 British comedy film Nearest and Dearest, a Hammer Films spin-off from the long running TV sitcom.

‘Hylda Baker & Jimmy Jewel will pickle your fancy in Nearest and Dearest’ ‘From HAMMER who gave you ‘ON THE BUSES”

Director John Robins’s British comedy film Nearest and Dearest stars Hylda Baker and Jimmy Jewel in a film of their very popular British TV sitcom (1968-73) that made its way to the cinema screens in 1972 thanks to Hammer Films. With interest in horror starting to wane, Hammer abandon their house of horror idea to return to their roots of turning radio and TV shows into movies.

This sees Jewel and Baker re-creating their roles as squabbling middle-aged brother and sister Eli and Nellie Pledge, who here get back together again when they inherit a Lancashire pickle business from their old father, Pledge’s Purer Pickles. Nellie works hard to keep the struggling business going, but Eli delights in beer, women, gambling and smoking.

On summer break, Nellie takes Eli to a Blackpool boarding house run by Mrs Rowbottom (Yootha Joyce), who fancies Eli, who  instead lusts after the younger Freda (Pat Ashton).

Nearest and Dearest is written by Roy Bottomley and Tom Brennand, with carelessly saucy and often witlessly rude seaside-postcard humour with characters called Vernon Smallpiece (Norman Mitchell), Mrs Rowbottom (Yootha Joyce), Mimi la Vere (Adele Warren) and Vinegar Vera (Janie Collinge). There is a full complement of double entendres and malapropisms. (Remember Hylda Baker’s ‘There she was prostitute on the floor’?) But the film is not without a measure of charm, mainly because of the two appealing mirth-making veteran stars, whose pairing is a delight, although apparently they didn’t see eye to eye in real life.

Also returning happily from the TV show are Madge Hindle as Lily Tattersall, Joe Gladwin as Stan Hardman, and Eddie Malin as Walter Tattersall.

The support cast is unusually thin on Brit comedy legends, with splendid Yootha Joyce the notable exception.

The cast are Hylda Baker as Nellie Pledge, Jimmy Jewel as Eli Pledge, Joe Gladwin as Stan, Edward Malin as Walter, Madge Hindle as Lily, Norman Mitchell as Vernon Smallpiece, Pat Ashton as Freda, Bert Palmer as Bert, Peter Madden as the court bailiff, Norman Chappell as man on the bus, Yootha Joyce as Mrs Rowbottom, John Barrett as Joshua Pledge, Carmel Cryan as club hostess, Sue Hammer as Scarlet O’Hara, Janie Collinge as Vinegar Vera, Donald Bisset as vicar, Kerry Jewel as Claude, Adele Warren as stripper Mimi la Vere, and Nosher Powell as bouncer.

The Granada Television ITV series Nearest and Dearest ran from 1968 to 1973, with 45 episodes were made, 18 in black and white and 27 in colour.

Baker went on to star in the ITV sitcom Not On Your Nellie in which Lancashire-born Nellie Pickersgill (Nellie Pledge in all but name) goes to London to run her ailing father’s pub, the Brown Cow.

Jewel went on to star in the sitcom Spring and Autumn (1973–1976), about a friendship between a lonely boy and an elderly man, created by Nearest and Dearest creators Vince Powell and Harry Driver.

Madge Hindle went on to become a series regular in Coronation Street from 1976 to 1980, playing Renee Roberts, the feisty shopkeeper wife of grocer Alf Roberts. When the Nearest and Dearest series’ director Bill Podmore, took over as producer of Coronation Street, he thought of her when he created the role of Renee.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,035

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com