June 1, 2025

Now fans of Pete Smith’s “Specialities” will know that he usually crams as many absurd scenarios as he can into ten minutes or so, but this one works less well than many of his others. It serves to exacerbate the nightmare that happens when guests unexpectedly arrive at your home. I don’t know about you, but if someone rang my doorbell as if they were hitting the emergency stop buzzer on a bus, then I’d take the battery out of the thing and leave… read the rest.

Now fans of Pete Smith’s “Specialities” will know that he usually crams as many absurd scenarios as he can into ten minutes or so, but this one works less well than many of his others. It serves to exacerbate the nightmare that happens when guests unexpectedly arrive at your home. I don’t know about you, but if someone rang my doorbell as if they were hitting the emergency stop buzzer on a bus, then I’d take the battery out of the thing and leave them on the right side of my firmly locked door. These folks are too polite, though, so in come a couple who, swiftly joined by another complete with their young son, set about eating them (noisily and gracelessly) out of house and home whilst doing their best to wreck the place as they go. The problem with this one is though one or two of these behaviours might resonate, the comedic elements of the film are too forced and contrived leaving a certain level of over-kill to a joke that was fairly thin to start with. There are still quite a few pithy one-liners from the narrator and I must confess to having a certain affinity with the last few minutes when time seems to stand still: with the winning post of their imminent departure tantalisingly close… or is it? These are always worth a gander but you might not remember this one for too long.

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