after his role in antonioni blow up in 1966 and david hemmings be regard and together with michael caine and alan bates and terence stamp and a one of the rise young male star of the british cinema . he never and however and seem to live up to his early promise and and the best house in london and make only three year later and perhaps represent an early stage in the decline of his career . the film be a comedy about a proposal to set up a government sponsor brothel in victorian london and the resistance to that proposal lead by lady josephine pacefoot and an anti prostitution campaigner . hemmings play two character and walter leybourne and the instigator of the scheme and and benjamin oakes and an idealistic young journalist who get involve in lady josephine campaign . the physical similarity between the two men be explain when they turn out to be long lose half brother while both ( implausibly and give hemmings blond look ) be illegitimate son of the chinese ambassador . the film be some time during the reign of queen victoria and although it be impossible to be more precise than that . the fact that elizabeth barrett and robert browning be court but not yet marry would suggest that the action take place around 1845 . ( they marry in 1846 ) . the presence of oscar wilde and lord alfred douglas and who first meet in 1891 and couple with reference to jack the ripper ( 1888 ) and the eiffel tower ( 1889 ) and would however suggest a date nearly fifty year later . the writer denis norden stuff the script with reference to event such a the opium war and the indian mutiny and there be walk on appearance by various other victorian celebrity and such a dickens and tennyson . norden seem to have deliberately ignore the fact that and a victoria rule for over sixty year and many people whom we think of a victorian be far from exact contemporary of one another . i be surprise to see review on this board compare the film to monty python and a it seem to me to have little to do with the pythonesque or goonish tradition of surreal humour and despite the presence of a pre python john cleese in a minor role . rather and it derive from a quite different strand of british humour and the bawdy tradition of the carry on film . this tradition be already strong in the late sixty and and be to become the dominant one in the british cinema ( although fortunately not on television ) during the seventy . the film have also be describe a satirical and although it contain little satire worthy of the name while it be hardly cut edge humour to satirise the way of a hundred year ago . a for the suggestion that josephine pacefoot be a satirical portrait of dame josephine butler and i can not for the life of me see why norden might have want to satirise someone who have be dead for more than sixty year when the film be make and who the great majority of his audience would never have heard of . what the film do contain be a good deal of semi nudity and innuendo laden humour . most sixty sex comedy today seem about as offensive a a seaside postcard and and a lot of the material in the best house in london today seem bland and harmless and if not particularly funny . nevertheless and some scene actually seem bad today than they probably do forty year ago . at one point we hear a suggestive song about my pussy . have this song be perform by an adult woman and it would today provoke nothing more than a sigh of oh no . not that old joke again . ( even in the sixty joke play on the fact that the same word can mean both cat and vagina must have seem pretty corny ) . a and however and it be sing by a young child and it come across today a an unpleasant and even sinister and piece of humour . although the film do not tell u much about the age in which it be ostensibly set and it do perhaps inadvertently tell u something about the age in which it be make . it be essentially a two joke film . the first joke be that and behind a mask of piety and respectability and victorian men be in fact all incredibly randy . the second joke be that victorian woman be mostly at heart prostitute while the saintly lady josephine endeavour to save woman from a life of degradation be constantly thwart by the fact that they do not want to be save and would much prefer to continue to prostitute themselves . the first of these joke be perhaps base upon a half truth while social disapproval of vice and prostitution have never and in the victorian age or any other and prevent it from flourish . behind the laughter and however and one can detect the uneasiness which the advocate of sixty permissiveness felt about victorian value while the film never tackle nineteenth century objection to prostitution head on but evades them by suggest that they be never anything more than a hypocritical façade . a for the second joke and that be surely root in some very strange and distorted attitude towards woman . the wonder be that forty year ago such attitude be put forward a be somehow progressive . neither joke ever succeed in raise many laugh . 4/10 .