Dudley Moore is a hash slinger who has a more than usually strong crush on a waitress, Eleanor Bron. So Moore sells his soul to the devil, Peter Cook, in return for seven wishes involving his waitress.Surprise -- the wishes go wrong. If he wishes, say, to be rich and be married to Bron, well, he is, but he didn't bother to specify that Bron should love him, so on their country estate she runs round after other men -- taller men, bronzed men, and crack croquet players.It's kind of amusing in its winsome British way. Oh, to be in England, now that 1967's here. The garb is cute and on women it's sexy, what with tiny skirts reduced to a length that absolutely requires opaque pantyhose.The principles work well together. As the devil, Cook is genuinely affable and sympathetic, a typical young man in period wardrobe except for his crimson socks. Dudley Moore is unsurpassed at making arch expressions.Kind of fun overall. Makes you yearn for the hoof beats of yesteryear.

When I saw the Fraser/Hurley version at the cinemas in 2000 I had no idea it was a remake. This, the original version from 1967 blends classic British comedy with pre-Pythonesque humour.Peer Cook tries to swindle Dudley Moore out of his soul by giving him seven wishes. The wishes all go wrong with varying degrees of amusement. I only burst out laughing once when Dudley is transformed into a nun. In between the wishes Rachael Welsh teases us as Lust while other familiar faces pass the camera before we've realised who they are. We sympathise with both the main characters. Will Dudley get his girl or will he live out his life in a habit? Will God take back Cook or will he just have a laugh?It's very entertaining and stands up well against the remake. Not unmissable but worth your time.

I found this one on Netflix streaming movies. I've seen the 2000 re-make with Brendan Fraser, but was unaware of this, the original, until two days ago. Naturally a movie made in 1967, coincidentally the year I graduated from college, will have a totally different look and sensibility. Plus this one was set and made in England, using pretty typical British humor, while the re-make is set and made in the USA.Dudley Moore, who also did the music and co-wrote the script, is Stanley Moon, lowly short order cook in a London dive. He longs for the waitress, but as a small, shy person can only wish from afar.Fret not, along comes Peter Cook as George Spiggott, aka The Devil. He is a rather pleasant chap, but after all these thousands of years wants to get back into God's good graces, and to do so needs to recruit souls. He bargains for Stanley's. Eleanor Bron plays the waitress Margaret . Sex symbol Raquel Welch plays Lust (Lilian Lust). Other actors play characters such as Vanity, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Avarice, and Sloth , the seven deadly sins.Both the original and the re-remake use the same general approach, the dEVIL will grant 7 wishes, so that he can get the girl, but each situation isn't exactly a good result. The two versions of the movie use totally different circumstances. An entertaining movie, and a nice blast from the past. It was good to see Moore in an early role.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore worked together in a variety of media for a long time. Their double act was extremely successful on stage and TV (and also on long playing record) where the sketch format was used: this format suited them. Their movie work was far less successful, and I suspect that a large part of this was because what worked in sketches was much more difficult to sustain for a whole movie.The first joy of Bedazzled is that, like Monty Python's Holy Grail, it pulls off the trick of hanging a series of sketches in a linking narrative so that the fact that it is, essentially, a feature length sketch show is cleverly disguised.The second joy is that the linking narrative - an updating of Faust, whereby Dudley Moore's loser griddle cook is put through the mincer by Peter Cook's amiable but merciless devil - works perfectly, as do most of the episodes illustrating Moore's wishes.Although this is very much a product of the era in which it was made, it is still a very good film, and repays the time spent in watching it.