The screenplay here seems to have been primarily designed to allow Dick Emery to slip into as many disguises as possible. This feat it certainly does well, but unfortunately it falls somewhat short just about everywhere else. The credits sequences are the dullest I've ever seen, and while the movie certainly improves after that, it nosedives again with the demise of its most interesting and colorful character, namely Reggie Campbell Peek, played by Ronald Fraser. All the same, it's still moderately suspenseful and the action spots are staged in a reasonably exciting manner. The girls are rather nice too, but lovers of wit and comedy are still in for a big disappointment. Fortunately, Emery himself displays a bouncy, never- say-die personality and manages to keep the movie afloat, even when the dialogue is at its shallowest. The scenes in which he impersonates a doddering butler are the film's funniest, but the rest of his material doesn't even halfway approach this standard. The Victoria Station scene, for instance, could have been amusing, but it is muffed by Cliff Owen's leaden direction. Fortunately, the scenes in the Police Academy, with its most unlikely cluster of beauties, will at least delight women lovers, but generally when the film tries to be risqué, it is at its flattest and dullest. Fortunately, these moments are not too many, although there are enough clumsy attempts to justify the film's title and publicity.
Review of Get Charlie Tully
