The Frankie Howerd Collection [DVD]

There's something about the British sensibility regarding humor that really appeals to so many of us Yanks. Maybe it's the extremely tongue-in-cheek wickedness that seems to be lacking in most, if not all, our own comedic efforts on television. Not to say there hasn't been some successful efforts, but we here in The States rarely can compare to the sly wink-wink, nod-nod type of naughtiness that the Brits seems to get away with so wonderfully.Likely, for us Americans, much of it has to do with that wicked naughtiness so often said in those classic United Kingdom accents, the James Mason type of upper crust, the classic Cockney or The Beatles Liverpool. Or perhaps all those Scots and Irish dialects we're all so familiar with. From greats like Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole or Tom Jones to the Python and Are You Being Served? gangs to the definitive Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple ladies to The Last Of The Summer Wine, Mr. Bean/Thin Blue Line/Black Adder, Heartbeat or Little Britain, we Americans (and undoubtedly others across the globe) have been enthralled with the voices of the U.K. for decades, even centuries.The list of great United Kingdom authors, musical performers, actors and comedians and their written, audio and visual efforts is endless and so much appreciated by so many outside the bounderies of the U.K.Frankie Howerd's work is right up there with my vision of classic British humor at it's peak best. This collection is one I highly encourage my fellow Americans (and all others) for excellent classic British Isles humor. I've seen Mr. Howerd a few times in small roles in major films before, but never had the pleasure of watching Up Pompeii before. I was absolutely delighted and will be looking forward to buying the films from that line as well. I was also taken with Then Churchill Said To Me. The Brits seems to make war time of those WW1 & WW2 times so funny, pithy and surreally heartwarming. America, too, has a number of items that match the British comedic take on war time such as the M*A*S*H efforts (film and TV show) and Clint Eastwood's Kelly's Heroes, McHale's Navy or Jack Lemmon's The Wackiest Ship In The Navy, all great. But there truly is something about the classic Birtish stiff upper lip thing combined with rapier wit regarding war that really appeals. To me Frankie Howerd did the job in TCSTM perfectly.I have yet to get to the last disc as after finishing up with TCSTM the other day I received in a 11 disc DVD collection of my own country's Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts and have been catching up on these which I've not seen since my childhood in the early '60s. If you U.K. folks have never seen those I would urge you to pony up and buy a collection. Great stuff!In the meantime, I will be ordering up the further Up series adventures done in major cinematic form, as well as collecting his other filmed works including his first, The Runaway Bus.Frankie Howerd was one of Britain's comedic greats!

The Frankie Howerd Collection, a rather vague title and not a thing written on the front of the box to spell out what it contains. For years I had been waiting for Up Pompeii to come out on DVD and it had been here all along.The Box set has the pilot episode made for the comedy playhouse, both series one and two in full, and the one off episode 'Further up Pompeii' which was made about a year later, not to be confused with the dissapointing 1991 Further up pompeii, which wasn't made by the BBC but ITV.Along with The Complete BBC Collection of Up Pompeii, it has the 'Best of Frankie Howerd' which is available seperately; a worthwhile DVD with snippets of all Frankies best sketches and TV appearances over the years, and the last DVD is 'And Churchill Said to Me' another series Frankie did for BBC TV.All in all this is a great collection of Frankies best stuff all in one Box set but lousy marketing by the BBC, they should have made it more apparent just what was in it.

I’m very happy with this Series! I remember it when I was young and even decades later, it still holds up. He was an amazing comic.

It's generally considered that Frankie Howerd was never better than as Lurcio the slave in 'Up Pompei'. Talbot Rothwel's stories - such as they are - borrow from the long tradition of resourceful servant and inept master such as 'The Admirable Crichton', or any number of Moliere comedies, but are essentially vehicles for Howerd's 'front of cloth' banter with the camera and the audience.Some might find the predictability of the plots a limitation, but - rather as we used to wait for the arrival of Lady Constance de Coverlet in 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again - we know that Nauseus' 'ode' will arrive or that 'The End is nigh', and we are happy that it should be so.If you never did Latin or Ancient History at school then many of the puns may pass you by but the sense of fun as Howerd apparently ad libs with senior thespian ('you heard'!) Max Adrian will almost certainly carry you along anyway.

This box set is superb. It consists of three different series - 'Up Pompeii' (both Series 1 & 2), 'Then Churchill Said to Me' and 'The Best of Frankie Howerd'. I haven't yet watched the Churchill series but the other two are everything a Frankie fan can expect. Every episode of the two series of 'Up Pompeii' is here and I laughed through each and every episode. This box set is well worth the price just for 'Up Pompeii' alone as this double DVD set is also sold by itself for about 50% more!This is classic 1960s and 1970s British humour. Unlike the humourless supposed 'comedy' today - this is actually funny.

This box set includes a wonderful range of shows featuring the late great Frankie Howerd (with and 'e' where the 'a' should be). The gem of this box set for me was Up Pompeii, the main reason I got this box set. Set during the world of Ancient Rome, the series has a carry on feel to it and had a surprising selection of guest appearances from other comedy actors. Originally no longer available in PAL format (another victim of the BBC burning film one they were finished with it) it was converted, in a relatively new process, from the American NTSC format.Highly recommended for fans of cheeky classic British comedy, a highly enjoyable collection.

Up Pompeii was ok, quite amusing but hasn't aged very well, as for the other two series we found them weak having flogged the Frankie Howerd formula to death and with, we thought, weak scripts.

Wow what a collection was only looking for Up-Pompeii and this box set includes further up Pompeii . The best of Frankie Howard and even then Churchill said to me . Well this blew me away great laughs in togas . laughed again in his shows , But only smiled with Churchill .. Well worth the penny's SPENT

This is a great set of Frankie Howerd. I just love his movies and TV shows. Great box set if you like British humor,

I used to love watching Up Pompeii on PBS so when I found this DVD collection I couldn't resist. It includes all episodes of the "Up Pompeii!" series, as well as the BBC special "Further Up Pompeii!", the series "Then Churchill Said To Me", and a "Comedy Greats" episode featuring Frankie Howerd."Up Pompeii!" was filmed in front of a live audience which allowed Howerd to do what he did best: interact with the audience. This is the fun and magic of the series. Viewers should remember that this was a different era of comedy. The writing and the humor are silly, bawdy, and perhaps politically incorrect (by today's standards) but seldom raunchy. Vaudevillian one-liners and silly running gags abound throughout the series.NOTE that these are region 2 DVDs and must be viewed on a Region 2 or multi-region player. They will not work on a standard US (Region 1) player.Sadly the picture and sound quality are not up to current standards but if you enjoy Frankie Howerd this is easily overlooked. Most of the original video tapes of the series were wiped out by the BBC and nearly lost forever. Fortunately some poorly converted recordings were found in the Canadian Broadcasting Corp archives in the late 70's in NTSC format and spun to DVD in the mid 2000's. Thanks to this we can still enjoy the genius of Frankie Howerd!

Gteat

These are region 2 encoded (which is clearly stated in the description) which requires a multi-region player. Image quality is considerably better than I expected (I own several VHS tapes of Up Pompeii for comparison). Obviously the quality cannot be better than the source recording! I was delighted with my purchase - the 3 DVD set contained several programs and interviews I had never seen before. I do wish that (somehow) the collection could've included the Up Pompeii feature film, however this is purely and observation and not a gripe.This set is thoroughly recommended for anyone who is a fan of Frankie Howerd.

I love Frankie Howard! This was hilarious! I had already seen up Pompeii but the rest of the material was new to meI do wish that Amazon would note whether or not video products are subtitled or captioned - I am hearing impaired, so this is very Important to me. Happily, this is.