THE MAGNIFICENT TWO: oh dear.... oh dear oh dear

I'm a huge Morecambe and Wise fan. The tv shows they made for the BBC in the 1970s are comedy classics. Eric Morecambe could do more with a single look than some comedians achieve in an entire career. And Ernie Wise was the consummate straight man.
What they weren't were film stars.
1967's THE MAGNIFICENT TWO is an excruciatingly unfunny attempt to recreate the easy banter, humour and camaraderie of Bob and Bing's Road movies of the 1940s. It might have worked had someone with an understanding of their comedy style been drafted in to write and direct. Unfortunately they weren't available so Eric n' Ern were saddled with Peter Blackmore's witless script and Cliff Owen's sledgehammer direction.

The result is almost too painful to watch. Morecambe and Wise blunder around a Home Counties version of a tinpot South American country getting mixed up with both its' military dictator and the rebels attempting to overthrow him. Eric is a dead ringer for the recently deceased rebel leader and finds himself installed as the country's new President after the corrupt Diaz regime is overthrown.
Hilarity does not ensue.
The plot plays to the strengths of neither man. Morecambe is straitjacketed into a role which leaves him no opportunity for his trademark ad libs and asides, and Wise is given so little to do he might as well have stayed in bed. Quite what induced them to accept such a thoroughly crappy project is a mystery since it must have been obvious it wasn't going to do anything to enhance their career.
THE MAGNIFICENT TWO is an embarrassment to its stars and a waste of time and film stock.