George and Mildred (film)

Synopsis

Mildred decides that she and George will celebrate their wedding anniversary in style at a swanky London hotel - however unhappy George might be at the cost involved. "I'm a traffic warden, not Aristotle Onassis", he tells her. But on arrival, George is taken for a ruthless hit-man by a shady businessman (Stratford Johns), who wants a rival eliminated. Mildred meanwhile remains in blissful ignorance throughout the resulting chaos.

Reception

Released shortly after the death of star Yootha Joyce (who died on 24 August 1980), the film was neither a commercial nor a critical success. One critic has described the film as "one of the worst films ever made in Britain . . . so strikingly bad, it seems to have been assembled with a genuine contempt for its audience." A writer for The Guardian stated that the film's failure marked "the death knell" for the 1970s British practice of producing motion picture spinoffs based on sitcoms. The film aired on television on Christmas Day 1980, only a couple of months after its theatrical release.