Shot at Pinewood Studios, this movie-length adaptation of the popular television series brought Irishman Patrick Brendan Kevin Aloysius Kelly (Joe Lynch) and Jewish Manny Cohen (John Bluthal) to the big screen. Together they comprised ‘Cohen & Kelly – Bespoke Tailors of Whitechapel’.
Already involved in arguments about their respective religions, the partners have a violent quarrel when Patrick takes the day off to attend a funeral (or rather a drunken wake).
But worse is to come when their takings are robbed, they have a full-scale fight in a pub, and join a cheap tour to Rome with a party of Catholic priests.
All the old favourites are there – jokes about the rabbi and circumcision, the Pope and the Virgin Mary – and the long-suffering Yootha Joyce seems as frustrated as newcomer Wendy King (ukulele-playing Opportunity Knocks winner) is quick to remove a skirt or something whenever the plot looks a bit bare.
Bill Maynard turns in a neat job as a roguish monumental sculptor.
Joe Lynch died on 1 August 2001 in Alicante, Spain, aged 75. John Bluthal died on 16 November 2018 in Australia. He was 89.
Manny Cohen
John Bluthal Patrick Brendan Kevin Aloysius Kelly
Joe Lynch Mrs Finch
Yootha Joyce Rita
Wendy King Bridie
Ann Beach Father Ignatious
Eddie Byrne Nathan
Bernard Stone Rabbi
David Nettheim Bishop Rourke
Ivor Dean Larkin
Bill Maynard Murphy
David Kelly Tramp
Jerold Wells Riley
Paddy Joyce Maria
Vicki Woolf Gina
Hilary Farr (as Hilary Labow) Swiss Guard
Steve Plytas Italian Policeman
William F. Sully Lad
Peter Denyer Hostess
Lindsay Marsh
Director
Ronnie Baxter
Video
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Already involved in arguments about their respective religions, the partners have a violent quarrel when Patrick takes the day off to attend a funeral (or rather a drunken wake).
