The Bargee (1964) User Reviews

On the barges

[Chase_Witherspoon · 6/10 · 1 March 2013]

Mild light comedy concerning dam master (Griffith) whose impressionable daughter (Foster) conceives to barge operator and ladies' man (Corbett), much to Griffith's chagrin. Ronnie Barker co-stars as Corbett's cousin and fellow "bargee" (with somewhat less luck with the ladies), the two concerned also with the imminent extinction of the centuries old tradition, in favour of motorised vessels.

Solid cast includes veteran Griffith as the gruff, ill-tempered man of the waterways (and sporting a bird's nest that would make Francis De Wolff or Sebastian Cabot blush), Barker as the amiable sidekick and prominent supporting roles for Derek Nimmo, Richard Briers and Norman Bird as a cowardly administrator who attempts to confront Griffith after he's sabotaged the canal as retribution for his daughter's, "condition". Some viewers may also recognise Ed Devereaux pre-"Skippy".

Essentially it seemed to me to be a tale about the preservation of traditions, some of which are anachronisms to the present day, others worth conserving. Pleasant enough slapstick with some nice countryside exteriors and a delightful supporting cast, a modest and inoffensive time-filler.

The Bargee grows on you

[richard-meredith27 · 7/10 · 11 March 2005]

Yes, it is nostalgic. Yes, it is slow, but canal boats can only cruise at 4 m.p.h. so perhaps it matches the storyline. Anyway, who says film has to be frenetic all the time? Harry H. Corbett is superb. It's a shame he never received more recognition for his talents during his life time. The film also was an early chance for Ronnie Barker to shine as Hemel's dim witted cousin. But my favourite supporting players are Eric Sykes' canal enthusiast energetically freewheeling through his scenes. He turns what are little more than vignettes into perfect sketches. Jo Rowbottom appears as one of Hemel's squeezes. Her brief appearance is actually quite touching- Hemel treats her badly, and she knows it.

If nothing else, Give it a try if you are a film buff! It's a 'spot the British character actor' film. Perfect rainy afternoon fare, except it has only been shown once on television in the last ten years.

A trip down nostalgias canal

[fostrhod · 7/10 · 24 January 2019]

A great period piece featuring a whose who of Mid sixties tv comedy. Harry H Corbett is Hamel a lovely romeo who sails the canals with a girl at every lock gate.

He wouldn't and doesn't want to change this way of life until the inevitable intervenes.

Honourable mentions to Ronnie Barker, Julie Foster and Hugh Griffiths.

It depicts a way of life and attitudes that have long since gone and is enjoyable because of this.

Highly under-rated.

[david-697 · 20 June 2004]

This is very much a star vehicle for Harry H. Corbett, fresh from the success of 'Steptoe And Son'. Indeed, the 'Steptoe' associations do not end there, as the presence of Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Duncan Wood suggest.

Like 'Steptoe', this movie is based around a traditional but dying industry (by the end of the film it has only 18 months), that of commercial narrow boat trading. The difference is that in 'Steptoe' the totting is very much a grim existence, but here it is a pretty much idyllic life and you can readily understand Hemel Pike's reluctance to give it up. The Technicolor helps provide a dream-like tone.

Galton and Simpson's script is strong, mixing comedy and drama as Corbett's 'Casanova of the canals' succumbs to the charms of the winsome daughter of the fiery Hugh Griffith. There is an equally strong cast to match, notably Eric Sykes as an incompetent amateur mariner and Miriam Karlin as a vengeful woman who discovers that she is not the only woman in Corbett's life. In my eyes Ronnie Barker steals every scene he is in.

This is possibly Corbett's best screen outing as star and is far better than its general reputation suggests. I first saw it around ten years ago and it failed to make an impression, re-watching it today, I fell in love with it.

Old-fashioned British rom com

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 5 August 2018]

THE BARGEE is a warm-hearted and likeable British romantic comedy; the fact that I enjoyed it speaks volumes, given that I tend to avoid this genre of film at all costs. Harry H. Corbett, in a performance which feels like a dry run for his most famous role, plays the titular character, a canal-boat Casanova who spends his time romancing the pretty girls living as lock keeper's daughters and the like along the canals he plies his trade. Corbett is excellent here, as he usually was, and given fine comedy support from a young Ronnie Barker in a star-making turn. The film is episodic, which is no bad thing, and has an old-fashioned charm in its depiction of Britain's waterways and behaviours that have long since vanished. The cast is very good indeed, the highlight being Hugh Griffith as the intolerant lock keeper.

Out of its depth

[Prismark10 · 2/10 · 13 August 2018]

A script by Galton & Simpson the creators of the seminal Steptoe & Son. Featuring Harry H Corbett, one of the stars of that sitcom. Add some lovely shots of barges and canals, examine a vanishing way of life that is commercial transport by canal. It should be a sure fire hit but the tepid story is a miss.

Like many movies emerging from that time period it has a bawdy outlook. Corbett plays Hemel, the bargee with a girl waiting for him at each canal stop. He loves them and leaves them sometimes faster if the M word is used. M stands for marriage.

Ronnie Barker plays his amiable but dim colleague. Eric Sykes plays an improbable posh sailor who is incompetent with boats and who is always getting in Hemel's way.

Trouble starts for Hemel when one of his nubile conquests falls pregnant and her father demands to know the name of the father.

There really is not much of a story, it feels episodic and comes across as a bad Carry On film. At least Barker is memorable, he would find fame working with another Corbett.

A gentle comedy with bitter-sweet undertones of the end of an era

[davem-3 · 10/10 · 28 September 1999]

The film is unique in that it attempts to portray working life on the English canals as it really was in the 1960s, without the affected prettification of most accounts.

The bargees are workmen, Hemel (Corbett) the ladies man trapped by a pretty girl, and propelled to the altar on the end of a shotgun, and Ronnie (Barker) his none too bright right hand man.

The film is set immediately before the end of the way of life that it portrays, as commercial narrowboat carrying came to an end on Britains waterways. At the time of its release, this was a very recent memory, the trade having been finally killed off by the severe winter of 1963.

The boats seen in the film are the genuine article, used in a film about the end of the trade, mere months after it ended. Within a very short time after the film, most of the craft had been destroyed, leaving only a few in preservation.

Oh My Gawd

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 15 December 2014]

Firstly in answer to one reviewers comment I was around at the time but did not go to see this money.I knew a clinker.A viewing 50 years on confirms my judgment.This rather like Steptoe and Barge.Extremely disappointing script and a rather unfunny Corbett do little to help.However what really makes it a pain to sit through is the tedious and unfunny standoff at the lock between Hugh Griffiths and the waterway officials..I am assuming it was meant to be funny and not dramatic.Eric Sykes is truly awful as a upper class boat owner.Spotting the support actors is about the only way of passing a rather tedious affair.

A delight for canal enthusiasts.

[user-98 · 10/10 · 22 June 2005]

A beautifully made film mainly shot on location. I'm the first to admit that this isn't a movie for the person looking for big 'belly laughs', but for lovers of the English canal system and it's history who like wistful humour and some beautifully subtle moments and some classic lines, it's superb. Harry H Corbett is billed as the Casanova of the canals but his (Hemel Pike) first love affair is with 'the cut', his early line where he says "The only way you'll get me off the canal is to fill it in", will strike a chord with canal enthusiasts. So I can quite understand why people rate this film lower as it is slightly specialised. For those interested in film locations, Leg O' Mutton Lock, the main location in the film is in fact Marsworth top lock on the Grand Union canal and is almost exactly the same today as in 1963, lots more boats though! Corbett's portrayal as Hemel Pike is either a tribute to his research into the canal way of life or he had experience of it as all his actions are extremely accurate. If you love canals you'll love this film. If you are looking for big laughs and constant action you'll be disappointed. I love it. 10 out of 10.

Lost With All Hands After 15 Minutes

[joachimokeefe · 2/10 · 13 November 2021]

Galton & Simpson, the brilliant English TV comedy writers of the early sixties, produce a feature for Harry H. Corbett, the delusional, aspirational, lecherous son Albert from Steptoe & Son (US spinoff Sanford & Son).

In The Bargee, Corbett plays commercial bargee (yes, they existed once) Hemel Pike; what Harold Steptoe might have become had he escaped Oil Drum Lane. And most of the early 60's British comedy stalwarts are here doing their regular turn. Similarly Corbett only recreates Harold Steptoe on a barge. Ronnie Barker, as his dimwitted brother partner, is not a patch on Albert Steptoe's malicious, cantankerous, devious Wilfrid Brambell (qv) - who pretty much stole the same year's 'A Hard Day's Night' as MacCartney's father.

But so far, so faintly amusing - Hemel plans his journey along the waterway by working out with woman he can spend each of the four nights with.

15 meandering minutes in, they come across Eric Sykes as a cabin cruiser owner with delusions of grandeur. Hemel avoids sinking his barge in a collision, but sadly the film is sunk with all hands at this point. Eric Sykes, bless him, is overwritten, overacted, and overboard. I could watch no more for fear of encountering him again.

Nostalgia/curiosity value only. 2* for meaning well.

Beautiful But Bad

[drednm · 9 January 2020]

Lovely scenery and color photography can't save this tedious and annoying film that's filled with irritating characters and bad pacing.

The film starts out well with Harry Corbett and Ronnie Barker taking a commercial load on their barge via the wondrous waterways (canals) to Birmingham. Despite Corbett's off-putting accent and speech impediment (he can't say his R's), it looks like it will be a picturesque comedy/drama set amid the English countryside. But as soon as Eric Syke's annoying character (the mariner), the week-end skipper who knows nothing about boats, shows up, the voyage goes off course.

Sykes is supposed to be the comic relief, but his character is too stupid to be funny. Anyway, Corbett plots his trip with "stop-overs" at various towns where he has a woman in each port. He finally makes it to where Julia Foster and her dad, Hugh Griffith, live. She's pregnant, and the story goes off in another direction with Griffith determined to find the guy who knocked her up.

This plot drags on and on with Griffith blocking the canal and causing all sorts of trouble until some government officials show up and they finally figure out who daddy is. Even after this resolution, the story drags on til its obvious conclusion.

Griffith, Foster, and Barker do what they can with one-dimensional characters. Sykes and Corbett are lost causes. Co-stars include Miriam Karlin as the boisterous Nellie, Norman Bird and Richard Briers as the government men, Derek Nimmo as the dumb doctor, and among the canal women, Rita Webb, Patricia Hayes, and Eileen Way.

Glad this was made?

[ouzman-1 · 10/10 · 30 October 2017]

Yes. To answer the question.

Why yes? Well it starred the wonderful acting of Harry H Corbett and Ron Barker yet - amazingly - this duo appear awkward and contrived whilst working together in this film. Harry on his own is pure screen gold.

Probably thought at the time to be marketed as a ribald comedy - it isn't. Nellie chasing a grown man with a knife down the Rickmansworth cut - followed by Eric Sykes taking snaps of the domestic- isn't very funny or laugh out loud. Dreadful. Eric Sykes playing a jolly naval Jack Tar barely amuses me but clearly had more talent in his naval than I will ever possess. Sad to see such a cameo by a great that could produce 'The Plank'.

Harry H is amazing and died tragically, far too soon. Ronnie went on to work with another Corbett in the golden years of British comedy TV. Both pure talents of gold.

The story line is as weak as the canal embankments found at the time - with the waterways on the point of extinction and about to go into decay and recession. Cuts to cuts were on the way in 60s Britain, transport water and railways destroyed by the bent bureaucrats. What a miserable sodding place England was in the swinging sixties! Perhaps the film reflects this POV, enlivened by the slap and tickle that ensured a more hopeful future Generation X. Galton and Simpson could always write well and pathos came naturally to these talented scriptwriters. So why not forgive the film lacking real joie de vivre that Genevieve and Titfield can provide? Watch it more than once and it will grow on you.

Luckily this film has preserved a happy jaunt down memory lane and possibly helped to inspire enthusiasts wishing to keep open the 200 year old waterways of industrial England.

The film would have to be on the shelf today of any self-respecting canal boats' DVD collection - alongside 'Genevieve' and 'The Titfield Thunderbolt'. It has none of the charm of those two fine films outside of the film's unique backdrop. But what a list of stars all great in their own way. Derek Nimmo, Hugh Griffith and the truly scrumptious Julie Foster. It is a remarkable film of a bygone yesteryear and those British stars - so moving. MaKEs US ALL wanna be on those boats once in your life, eh? I love it.

Tedious and disappointing

[dimplet · 9/10 · 7 February 2014]

What were they thinking? Acting of a level found in children's movies, yet a story about philandering? Some of the acting is jaw-droppingly bad, with the most bizarre from the fellow playing the doctor, followed by the mariner-twit. Julia Foster and Hugh Griffith deliver the only satisfactory performances.

The concept of the movie is commendable: documenting the fast-fading life along the canals. The widescreen Technicolor does the subject justice. But it should have been more of a slice-of-life approach, with more natural acting and writing. Instead, it is painfully corny.

British viewers seem to like it. Perhaps they are more used to this sort of highly artificial acting, from their movies and television programs? American TV is not without its share of corn, such as Gilligan's Island and The Beverly Hillbillies, also from the Sixties. So there must be people who like this sort of thing.

My guess is The Bargee has more appeal to British viewers, the subject being part of their cultural heritage. However, although I love historical period movies, this lacks the vérité and detail to really give me a feeling of the time. The music also often seems out of joint with the action on the screen. The end result is tedious and disappointing.

All the pace of a barge!!

[zzapper-2 · 3 January 2002]

David Mayall correctly identifies the film as a useful bit of social history, with many outside shots of a lost way of life. This does sufficiently warn potential viewers that as a comedy it is as dull as ditchwater. Ronnie Barker is crushed by Harry Corbets character. This is the kind of product which almost killed the British Film Industry. Have people voted 10 for this film out of irony? (Confession I was unable to see the end of film). Did any one pay to see this at the time?

A very good film

[benmcewan-89315 · 10/10 · 14 November 2021]

A very good film, dispite being a bit dated in terms of jokes it is still a great story and some great scenes and quotes.

Has the air of a carry on film but still stays as a good separate film.