World War II may be over, but meat rationing is still in force in England, creating a healthy black market for the stuff. In one ordinary English village everyone seems to be on the fiddle apart from mild-mannered chiropodist Gilbert Chilvers. Gilberts eeks out a quiet living serving the feet of the other villagers, much to the annoyance of his social climbing wife and mother-in-law. However when Gilbert gets wronged by the social elite he decides to betray them by stealing an illegal pig they have been fattening up for a large banquet. But once the deed is done, Gilbert finds it harder to turn into food than he had expected.
Despite an all star British cast, a subject matter close to all English peoples hearts (class) and quite a few funny moments, this film comes off as a rather mixed affair that seems to be unsure of what it is trying to do and thus doesn't manage to hit any of its targets that well. The script seems to want to be full of whimsy while also being a bit of a satire on the middle-classes, but it is too serious to do the former well, and too relaxed and fuzzy to do the latter. This is not to say it is bad because it does have some things going for it but it just managed to get a consistent tone is the problem. The script has some cracking dialogue at times but mainly falls flat neither being funny nor sharp enough to do anything of value. Backing this up, the film doesn't really have an ending with the satire being too vague and the producers tacking on a poor final scene just to give the audience a more positive image to go home on.
The cast are good on paper but too few of them really have much to do. Palin is very quiet and, although I know this was what was required of him, he didn't do it that well. Smith is much better and is very scheming and very like a lot of middle class people I know even today ideas above their station I think would be the condescending way of saying it; they are both well supported by Liz Smith in a comic role. Elliott and Normington are very mercenary having made the top but people like Postlewaite, Griffiths, Paterson and so on are just "there" as opposed to really making an impact.
Overall this is an OK film because, even in missing its targets it still has enough going for it to be worth seeing. Failing as both satire and light comedy, the film still have good elements of both and is an amusing class comedy, but the misses and confusions are evident within the film and it is a bit annoying to see it pull itself in various directions without really ever moving. OK, but nothing more than that.
