The Bliss of Mrs Blossom ** (1968, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Attenborough, James Booth) – Classic Movie Review 8816

Director Joseph McGrath’s daft, Swinging Sixties 1968 British crazy sex comedy The Bliss of Mrs Blossom stars Shirley MacLaine as Mrs Harriet Blossom, the blissful wife of a brassiere maker Robert Blossom (Richard Attenborough), keeping her repair-man lover Ambrose Tuttle (James Booth) in the attic, with gay police detective-sergeant Dylan (Freddie Jones) and his bungling assistant (William Rushton) soon arriving hot on the case of the missing repair-man.

The Bliss of Mrs Blossom is meant to be a surreal absurdist comedy, and it is often just silly but sometimes it is funny, thanks mostly to the practised playing of an engaging set of mainly British TV stars (including Bob Monkhouse as a psychiatrist called Dr Taylor, Patricia Routledge and John Bluthal). But the smirkingly tasteless humour does have the heavy stamp of writer Denis Norden on it. Are bras automatically funny? We think not!

It comes as no surprise that such an incredible tale is based on a true story that took place in the 1920s when Walburga Oesterreich kept her lover Otto Sanhuber in the attic for many years, though the real story had a different ending.

The screenplay is by Alec Coppel and Denis Norden, based on a play by Alec Coppel and a short story by Josef Shaftel, the film’s producer.

Also in the cast are Frank Thornton, Barry Humphries, Bea Arthur, John Cleese, Harry Towb, Sheila Steafel, Bruce Lacey, Marianne Stone, Clive Dunn, Freddie Earlle, Carol Cleveland and Sandra Caron.

MacLaine stepped in for a reported $750,000 fee at the last minute when the original star pulled out.

Assheton Gorton is production designer.

It was shot on location in Bloomsbury, at the National Film Theatre and at Alexandra Palace in London, and in the studio at Twickenham Film Studios, Middlesex.

Songs include ‘The Way That I Live’ performed by Jack Jones, ‘Let’s Live for Love’ by Spectrum, and ‘Fall in Love/ performed by the New Vaudeville Band.

Attenborough cast MacLaine as star in his final film, Closing the Ring (2007). MacLaine has been a star since Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (1955).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8816

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