Oh, those wacky 1960s, a time in which it seemed theater and film could go way out, man. Way, way out. Maisie Mosco’s play Happy Family — which, if there is any justice in the world, wasn’t a success onstage — became a movie in 1970 that redefined the word “obscurity.” Hammer horror buffs will recognize the name of its director, Freddie Francis, but Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly is no Hammer. More of a bent, rusty nail, actually. When Britain’s National Film Theatre sponsored a Francis retrospective season, no one could locate even a videotape copy of this one.
The four title characters live in a decaying mansion somewhere in England. Sonny and Girly, both in their late teens or early 20s, go on the prowl at the local playground and pick up homeless men, drunks and hippies (remember them?); bring them home; and force them to become “New Friends” or even members of the family. When the current New Friend tries to escape, he is killed as part of The Game. Despite their chronological ages, the siblings act and talk like pre-adolescents. Mumsy and Nanny are so stereotypically pre-war Brit, they’d make Mary Poppins puke a spoonful of sugar.
Also known as simply Girly, it sounds creepy, and could be if the movie weren’t trying so hard to be mysterious in a zany sort of way. My guess is that the play was long on black comedy in the absurdist manner so popular at the time, and Francis’ tendency, naturally enough, was to play up the horrific aspects, and the two approaches to the material do not mix well at all.
The movie has a good cast of Brit character actors, led by Michael Bryant as the newest New Friend. Vanessa Howard is a very sexy Girly, in a creepy she-wants-to-cut-my-head-off kind of way. Oddly enough, my guess is that everyone involved thought they were making an art film. No cigar. —Doug Bentin
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Our nominal hero here is “The Kid” (Scott Strader), who’s supposed to be a wildly charismatic party animal, but more closely resembles a crude, lazy, narcissistic prick with severe emotional problems. We’re led to believe he’s the glue required to keep his ragtag tennis team on their improbable winning streak, but all we actually see him do is take them out to a series of increasingly sleazier bars. At some point, future Emmy/Golden Globe-winner Mariska Hargitay shows up in order to be his love interest, but you’ll be too pre-occupied trying to figure out if she’s had any plastic surgery between then and now to notice how superfluous her character actually is.
When I heard a straight-to-video sequel to the 2003 actioner 
While all this is going on, Robert Patrick minimally toys with the crew, in a bid for poorly plotted revenge: He’s an ex-CIA spook who is pissed they kinda-sorta-but-not-really killed the woman (Kristanna Loken, for about one minute) he’s been stalking. We’ve all been there, right?
She saw only one of the killers (Morgan), but the other one (Webb) thinks she should be killed just to be on the safe side. Goddard goes undercover as a bent government man in order to find out what these crooks are up to, and how to stop it.
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