Morecambe & Wise - The Intelligence Men / That Riviera Touch / The Magnificent Two - Region 2 DVD

The Intelligence Men is an obvious but likeable parody of the early Bond films and sets the pattern for all three films: Eric and Ernie as two well-meaning blunderers cast into an unfamiliar milieu (in this case, international espionage) and forced to survive armed with little more than a repertoire of wince-inducing puns.

That Riviera Touch is an obvious but likeable parody of the heist genre. Again, Eric and Ernie are cast as hapless ingénues, in this case a pair of traffic wardens whose holiday in France intersects with the plottings of a gang of jewel thieves. If anything, it’s even more contrived than that sounds, but the scenes in which Eric cleans out the casino by accident are wonderfully understated, and a reminder of a peerless comic actor.

The Magnificent Two, the final and by some distance the least funny of the three, is an updated though rather laboured subversion of the Spaghetti Western, relying rather too much on the notion that anything and everything to do with foreigners is inherently hilarious.

On the DVD: The Morecambe & Wise Collection has English subtitles for all three discs and all include the original cinematic trailer. That Riviera Touch is presented in 4:3 format, the remaining two in 16:9. As special features go, these are annoyingly desultory for a release that will certainly only be purchased by die-hard fans. It wouldn’t have killed the producers to commission some liner notes at the very least.--Andrew Mueller