Charlie Tully (Dick Emery) and Reggie Peek (Ronald Fraser) are confidence tricksters who con a rich Italian family out of half a million pounds by pretending to arrange a meeting with the Royal Family about marriage to Princess Anne.
Arriving back at Heathrow Airport, Charlie can’t resist conning a couple of tourists out of £200 but is caught in the act while Reggie flees the country with the cash from their Italian scam.
Charlie is sentenced to six months, and Reggie puts the money in a Swiss bank account for safekeeping. But before Reggie can tell Charlie the account details, he is killed by the mafia, called in by the Italians they swindled.
It turns out that womanising Reggie has tattooed parts of the account number on the bottoms of four girls he slept with in the past few months, so Charlie sets off to find them.
This then provides the opportunity for Emery to wheel out some of his famous characters (including Mandy and Lampwick) in a romp heavily laden with smut and innuendo.
Meanwhile, Charlie is pursued by two criminal gangs – a Kray-like gang of Soho hoods and the London branch of the Mafia family – in a confusing but largely inconsequential plot.
While the early 70s British obsession with cinematic spin-offs from popular comedy television series’ was largely unsuccessful (what was funny in the living room rarely translated well to the big screen), Ooh . . . You Are Awful is actually a good film.
Instead of throwing together a limp framework of sketches and sight-gags, screenplay writers John Warren and John Singer constructed a really tight plot and storyline.
The film was released in the US as Get Charlie Tully.
Charlie Tully
Dick Emery
Sid Sabbath
Derren Nesbitt
Reggie Campbell Peek
Ronald Fraser
Libby Niven
Pat Coombs
Arnold Van Cleef
William Franklyn
Jo Mason
Cheryl Kennedy
Warder Burke
Norman Bird
Vivian
Roland Curram
Liza Missenden Green
Liza Goddard
Lady Missenden Green
Ambrosine Phillpotts
Funeral Director
Brian Oulton
Signor Vittorio Ferrucci
Steve Plytas
Emilio Ferrucci
Louis Negin
Don Luigi
Henry Gilbert
Dino
Anthony Stamboulieh
Carlo
Guido Adorni
Capo Mafioso
Stefan Gryff
Mancini
John Louis Mansi
Patsy
Julie Crosthwaite
Jane
Anna Gilchrist
Director
Cliff Owen