Directed by Lewis Gilbert
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Sony Screen Classics by Request)
Kenneth More is the butler in a typical British aristocratic household at the turn of the century. The women's suffragette movement gives the aging master of the house the idea that the servants should be treated equally. He invites them all to a tea party, but their roles are so ingrained that it fails. He takes some of them on a cruise to the South Seas, where they are shipwrecked on a desert island. It quickly becomes apparent that only the butler is equipped to survive, the rest are just pathetic. Flash forward two years and roles are now reversed. The butler has become "the guv", king of the island, where his former employers wait on him hand and foot and do everything possible to please him. He proposes to the daughter, something which would have been unthinkable in their former life. Just in the nick of time a ship arrives to save them. Back in England, they return to their former roles for awhile, but the experience has changed them and it doesn't last. It can be juvenile at times, and the premise is a stretch, but the satirization of traditional British mores and manners makes it worthwhile viewing.
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