Much of Mr. Harmon's lines seemed better suited for Mr. Mash. Harmon never came off as a "dirty old man" the way Mash did in the TV version. Mr. Humphries was written more as a parody of Mr. Humphries. As for the rest, I agree the jokes were sadly lacking. The bit about the Arab buying trousers was better suited to TV and should never have been used here, especially since it was edited down from the original. (Wherein he wanted to buy a pair of men's trousers for his head wife, but Humphries and Lucas were forbidden to actually touch her in order to measure her. The movie version omitted the wives and the rest of his entourage except the interpreter and used the "taking an inside leg on a man wearing a kilt" bit from TV with Humphries attempting to stick the tape measure up his robe. )
I *did* like how they made the movie's store set look more like a real department store. The TV show's set was way too small for a real department store, and there were only two departments on the entire floor. This made Captain Peacock's task of directing customers seem completely ridiculous, but fortunately, the writers were able to use this fact for comic effect on at least one episode when a customer needled Peacock for having an easy job. (Early shows had dialog and sound effects running in the backround which gave the impression that the floor opened out more towards the audience, which also lent credibility to the theme song's line about telephones being sold on the first floor along with "gents' ready-made suits")
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