Spanish Fly
Directed byBob Kellett
Written byPeter James
José Luis Martínez Mollá
Robert Ryerson
Produced byGerald Flint-Shipman
Peter James
StarringLeslie Phillips
Terry-Thomas
Graham Armitage
Nadiuska
Sue Lloyd
Music byRon Goodwin
Production
companies
Winkle Productions
Quadrant Films
Izaro Films
Distributed byEMI Films
Release date
February 1976
Running time
86 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
Spain
LanguageEnglish
Budget£250,000[1]

Spanish Fly is a 1975 British-Spanish comedy film directed by Bob Kellett and starring Leslie Phillips, Terry-Thomas, Graham Armitage, Sue Lloyd and Nadiuska.[2]

Plot

Mike Scott, an impotent British fashion designer, heads out to Spain for a photo shoot and encounters an old school rival, Sir Percy de Courcy, who has inadvertently added an aphrodisiac to the local wine.

Cast

Production

Impact-Quadrant Films was a company run by Peter James and Kent Walwin which specialised in financing and distributing horror films. They wanted to move into the British domestic sex comedy market, having noticed that there were no challengers to the Carry On Films. They made a small investment in Can You Keep It Up for a Week? (1974) which was successful and they began to look at making a whole feature.[1]

A Canadian distributor had success with a Leslie Phillips film and asked if they could have another. Phillips was about to go to Australia for a year so they had a script written quickly, about an escort agency. Nobody liked it so James and Walwin wrote a 110-page treatment over "a long weekend" which was turned into a script by a writer.[1]

The film's budget was £250,000, of which 40% was provided by EMI Films and a Spanish company 8%. The majority capital was split between James, his associate and four English backers, one of them a lawyer.[1]

The film was part of a six-picture slate from EMI Films, which also included Evil Under the Sun (1982), Aces High (1976) and cinema adaptations of TV shows – The Likely Lads (1976) and Sweeney! (1977).[3] Another account said this was an eleven picture slate with other movies including Seven Nights in Japan (1970), Cross of Iron (1977) and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1976).Filming started July 1975.[4]

It was filmed in Menorca. Terry-Thomas was suffering from the effects of Parkinson's disease.[5] However, he was still able to withstand the rigours of filming, in what was his last major film role.

Release

The film was released with a heavy advertising campaign, including a novelisation of the script, a song "Fly Me" (because the BBC would not play a song called "Spanish Fly").

Reception

Box-office

Screening rights to the film were sold to 25 countries, something James attributed to the fact that unlike many British sex comedies it featured foreign locations.

James wanted to make a sequel French Kiss but none eventuated.

Critical reception

Writing in Monthly Film Bulletin David McGillivray said: "Produced on a slightly higher budget than most of its ilk, Spanish Fly is at least attractive to look at. But apart from the moderate amusement to be had from Terry-Thomas being Terry-Thomas, it is a weak excuse for a comedy, boasting all the ingredients (lecherous underwear salesman has fun in hotel bedrooms) but none of the cuisine. The finale, in which the cast runs around barking at each other, would have seemed banal even in the tattiest childrens film"[6]

Barry Norman in The Observer called it the least funny British funny film ever made.[1]

Radio Times reviewer Jeremy Aspinall described it as a "curio from the 1970s" which "looks awfully dated now. However, the stars still manage to exhibit consummate charm and professionalism despite the bawdy nonsense going on around them."[7]

Time Out refers to it as being a "[d]ire comedy which doubles as a series of plugs for an underwear company."[8] The film featured designs from Peter Reger.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Decline and fall of the funny film The Observer 8 February 1976, p. 32
  2. ↑ "Spanish Fly". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  3. ↑ Boost for studios The Guardian 9 July 1975: 5.
  4. ↑ Owen, Michael (8 July 1975). "Another Agatha Christie Thriller". Evening Standard. p. 10.
  5. ↑ "Features". Terry Thomas Fellowship.
  6. ↑ "Spanish Fly". Monthly Film Bulletin. 43 (504): 34. 1976 – via ProQuest.
  7. ↑ Aspinall, Jeremy. "Spanish Fly". Radio Times. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  8. ↑ "Spanish Fly". Time Out. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  9. ↑ 'We hold our board meetings in bed' The Guardian 26 August 1975: 11.
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