Review FAWLTY TOWERS: "A TOUCH OF CLASS" - Episode 1

[Doctor Omega]

With the very first episode...

A TOUCH OF CLASS

Basil is delighted when a member of the aristocracy chooses to stay at the Fawlty Towers, snubbing the normal guests who frequent the hotel.

On to the next episode....

THE BUILDERS

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/the-builders-episode-2.3574/



Back to the main FAWLTY TOWERS thread.....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/fawlty-towers-1975.5651/

 

[chainsaw_metal1]

I think my absolute favorite moment comes from the head injury episode when Basil goes off on the German tourists and mimics Hitler.

 

[Doctor Omega]

The show is just filled with great moments. I used to think that 12 episodes was a feeble amount, but what the series lacked in number of shows, it more than made up for with quality and loads of wonderful quotes.

 

[Doctor Omega]

 

[michaellevenson]

" Do I want you to take my coin collection to be valued by the Duke Of Buckleigh, my Lord?
No I don't, we've just heard the Duke Of Buckleigh is dead. Yes head knocked off by a golf ball ,tragic!"
" You stupid arrogant upper class piles of pus!"
" First you move that nice family during dinner then you attack Lord Melbury with a chair"
John Cleese has stated that Basil Fawlty is an odious character, but I think he had charm. He is a total snob of course, but when Melbury is revealed as a conman, and Lord and Lady Morris walk out his sudden change of attitude reveals that Fawlty's real beliefs ,politics, loyalties are hard to fathom. Fawlty is king of his domain and anyone upsetting his ideas is there to be taken down. As Sybil says in a later episode;
" you're either licking their boots or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff adder"

 

[johnnybear]

My favourite has to be Waldorf Salad with the loud, obnoxious American guest who isn't really as bad as the blurb seems to indicate! He just wanted a little consideration for his needs and Basil just wasn't going to give him that! Despite the fact that Basil had never heard of a Waldorf Salad and thought maybe it was a Walnut that had gone Orffe!! Then when Mr.Hamilton humiliates Basil, he takes it out on the other guests and orders them to vacate the Hotel immediately, even the Major and the old ladies it seems too but Sybil would rather let her husband go instead!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

That later episode was The Psychiatrist, Mike, as I saw it last night!
JB

 

[michaellevenson]

That later episode was The Psychiatrist, Mike, as I saw it last night!
JB

Yes that's right. Other gems;
Manuel " I tell Mrs Fawlty you crazy about this girl right?, so you go up ladder to look at her, and She goes crazy!!"
Basil leaps out of cupboard ,
" OK the games up....er up there, (pointing to ceiling) bit of game pie got stuck there"

 

[Doctor Omega]

Lennon talking about his love for Fawlty Towers and Python in December 1980; two days before his assassination.

 

[michaellevenson]

This is not exactly rib tickling, but of some interest to Fawlty Towers fans. An episode of Doctor At Large written by John Cleese, containing hotel scenes and some ideas he would expand on in FT a few years later. In this we have a number of FT elements.