Line #4 YMMV/AFishCalledWanda


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
2	** As evidence of just how much people like Creator/MichaelPalin, audiences came up with excuses like "she must not have been a very nice old lady" to try and maintain Palin as a nice guy in their minds. Mind you, this is the same man who played a torturer in ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', and would play Vyacheslav Molotov, who weaselly disowns his own wife to save his skin, in ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'', both times with his trademark cheerful charisma.
3	** Archie's wife is presented as cold, nagging and uncaring, and Archie is one of the viewpoint characters, so we're meant to root for him. However:
4	*** He is having an affair. Comedic situations aside, it's he who betrays her trust;
5	*** Is the wife really that bad to him because '''she''' doesn't care? When Archie is kissing her, she says "that's so unlike you" and she seems happy, even delighted. It's not that strange that she wouldn't be very affectionate if she never seems to be on the receiving end of attention. When she thinks she got a gift from him, her reaction is genuinely thankful;
6	*** And the big one: she overhears Otto claiming Archie robbed his own house and is "porking" Wanda. She seems to give Archie the benefit of the doubt and not jump to conclusions. She only threatens divorce after Archie confirms her suspicions '''and''' humiliates her in public by calling Wanda "darling".
7	*** Considering all these, who is the villain in the situation?
8	* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail:
9	** The producers were worried about how this film would perform at the box office, particularly in the U.S. It was a British made, British set comedy made with a veteran British director, written by a British writer, with a British cast known primarily for television work plus two familiar but not A-list American actors (who were not particularly known for comedy roles either). Using the budget carefully It took Creator/JohnCleese and director Charles Crichton four years to get the film made with and persuade Creator/{{MGM}} to take a chance and distribute it. Fortunately it proved to be a huge sleeper hit and made a tidy profit for those involved.
10	** Creator/MichaelPalin thought the script was awful when he first read it and recorded his low opinion of it in his diary.
11	* ComedyGhetto: Creator/KevinKline's UsefulNotes/AcademyAward was a rare win for a comedic role.
12	* CrossesTheLineTwice:
13	** Ken's repeated attempts to kill an old lady, accidentally killing her dogs in the process (much to his despair, being an animal lover).
14	** The DVD extras show that another running gag was dropped completely wherein Otto practices his marksmanship whenever he hears a cat by shooting its tail off (you see him shoot off screen then hear a yowl but later see him arranging the tails like flowers in a vase). It was dropped because combined with all the cruelty to dogs as well it really was crossing too many lines.
15	** Creator/MichaelPalin said that the film-makers filmed the reveal of the sadly flattened dog with guts visibly squashed out of it, which upset a test audience. They decided that the plain flattened dog was comically shocking while avoiding being gruesomely realistic.
16	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
17	** Otto is an absolute blast to behold, thanks to Creator/KevinKline's fantastic scenery chewing and the wonderfully absurd nature of his jingoism. As mentioned above, the character was so great that it netted Kline an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Supporting Actor.
18	** There's also a great deal of love for Creator/MichaelPalin's Ken, which won him a Best Supporting Actor prize from UsefulNotes/{{BAFTA}}.
19	* HarsherInHindsight:
20	** Like any pre-9/11 movie, the lack of security at an airport is uncomfortable today. But going further back, keep in mind this film was released just a few months before Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up by terrorist bomb on board. Pan Am 103 made its final stop at Heathrow.
21	** The WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue states that Ken becomes the master of ceremonies at London Sea World. Considering the revelations about [=SeaWorld's=] mistreatment of animals that have come out in TheNewTens, it's unlikely that animal lover Ken would be too enthusiastic about that job. Though, given the irreverent nature of said epilogue, this could simply serve to make it more HilariousInHindsight from a BlackComedy perspective.
22	* HilariousInHindsight: One of the "Russian words" that Archie and Wanda whisper to one another is Molotov. Creator/MichaelPalin portrayed Molotov 29 years later in ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin''.
23	* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize: {{Inverted\|Trope}} The gang consists of Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/KevinKline, Creator/MichaelPalin, and... Tom Georgeson. No points for guessing who goes down for the crime.
24	* RetroactiveRecognition: In the airport at the end, a young Creator/StephenFry appears as the man Otto robs.
25	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: [[spoiler:Otto becoming South Africa's Minister for Justice meant a lot more in the Apartheid Era than it does today.]] Also, Otto's airport gun-tossing trick would never have worked post-9/11.
26	* TheWoobie: Ken suffers from a severe stammer, is continually bullied by Otto and as an animal lover gets very upset when he keeps accidentally killing another one of Mrs. Coady's dogs instead of her.

Context YMMV / AFishCalledWanda