Pete 'n' Dud

I recently bought the DVD of 'Bedazzled' - the original film, not the remake with Liz Hurley. Obviously. Anyway, it's a very uneven but still highly entertaining effort. I'd forgotten how significant a role Eleanor Bron played - or rather, how many roles she played, bringing some much-needed thespian skills. Dudley Moore could act, Peter Cook quite obviously couldn't. Since he plays Satan aka George Spiggott this isn't such a severe handicap as it would be in later films ('Supergirl', anyone?) as the Devil is obviously not human. But it does produce some flat scenes, making the film seem like a series of TV sketches cobbled together. It is more than that, but only just. Still, some of the set pieces are very good - Drimble Wedge and the Vegetations surely anticipated today's bloody miserable art-school 'rockers'. And it's always nice to see leaping nuns. Pity we've lost so much of Pete 'n' Dud's very best work. Well done again, BBC. Wherever popular culture reached its zenith, there was the corporation, wiping the tapes.