| Soft Beds, Hard Battles | |
| Director: | Roy Boulting |
| Based On: | an idea by Maurice Moisiewitsch |
| Producer: | John Boulting Roy Boulting |
| Starring: | Peter Sellers Curd Jurgens Lila Kedrova |
| Cinematography: | Gilbert Taylor |
| Music: | Neil Rhoden |
| Studio: | Charter Film Productions |
| Distributor: | The Rank Organisation (through Fox-Rank[1]) |
| Released: | (UK) |
| Runtime: | 107 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | £750,000[2] |
Soft Beds, Hard Battles is a 1974 British comedy film directed by Roy Boulting, starring Peter Sellers (in several roles), Curd Jürgens, Lila Kedrova and Jenny Hanley. Sellers reunited with the Boulting brothers for this farce, in which the women of a brothel help the war effort to rid the world of the Nazi peril – in the bedroom.[3]
The film took a limited release; in the United States, it was released under the title Undercovers Hero.
Set in Nazi-occupied France, the story follows Major Robinson of the British Army. Installing himself at a Parisian brothel, he assists the French resistance and works with Madame Grenier and her girls who find themselves eliminating high ranking German officers (using ingenious rigged beds and killer flatulence pills) right under the noses of the Gestapo. The girls find themselves enlisted in the Free French Forces and finally help to foil Hitler's plan to blow up Paris. They later receive medals from the French president.[4]
John and Roy Boulting had been pursuing separate careers for several years before reuniting to make this film. John left his position as managing director of British Lion which he held for six years to produce "because I am anxious to make films again."[5] He called the film "a flippant look at war and the absurdities of war... All naked men are alike really and the film stresses the idea that wars are not won or lost by top level Whitehall, Pentagon, or Wilhemstrasse strategy but by fortuitous intangibles and by the foibles of human beings."[5]
The brothers were directors of British Lion, which was sold to Barclay Securities. They proposed to sell 45 of the 60 acres of Shepperton studio for housing development. The union protested and said if any of the previous directors of Shepperton, such as the Boultings, tried to make films anywhere they would be blackbanned. Production on the film began in March 1973 but was halted due to uncertainty about the banning. John Boulting blamed "a little cabal of Communists who are ideologically motivated. They are dedicated in my view not to the improvement of our industry but to the destruction of the whole fabric of society." The union said the Boultings were "hysterical."[2] The union withdrew the blackban provided the Boultings give "prior consideration" to Shepperton for the making of any other films.[6] The brothers agreed.[7] Filming finished by May 1973.[8]
The film was a financial failure and Roy Boulting lost a considerable amount of his own money on it.[9]
The Irish Times called it "his best film for some time".[10] Vincent Canby The New York Times called it "a sketch film with very few jokes".[11] Time Out wrote: "Its raison d'être is Peter Sellers, back in brilliant form as six variations on blinkered authority, including Hitler and a De Gaulle-ish French general, but particularly as the Gestapo chief Schroeder, limping-cum-strutting from disaster to disaster, an extraordinary amalgam of Dr Strangelove and Fred Kite. Worth a visit for Sellers and one classic joke about a PoW."[12]