We see Chrissy and Pluthero sitting in a booth, and then Larry tells Robin. Pluthero offers Chrissy 200. She says she's a naive young girl.
Pluthero: I wouldn't say that.
Chrissy: But it's what you were thinking.
She says she owes loyalty to the other people in the flat.
The cook and Larry are spying on them. The cook asks if that's the fellow they were telling him about. Larry says yes, because of Pluthero he has to look for a new pad (as in home).
Chrissy excuses herself from the table and goes in the kitchen. She tells Robin that Pluthero is "bribing me into throwing you and Jo out into the street." When she returns to the table, she says she changed her mind, getting Pluthero's hopes up. But she's decided to start with the beluga caviar instead. She orders from Larry and they act like they don't know each other.
Robin puts "a bit too much" black pepper on the Steak Diane. Larry and the cook egg him on.
Pluthero says that his mother wanted him to be a concert cellist but he didn't have the knees for it, so he went into property management instead. Chrissy says he went from one big fiddle to another (in the sense of fraud). He says, "Very good, yes, ha ha."
Larry, just for the hell of it, puts on a bad French accent.
Pluthero notices that the salad has an unusual flavour, exotic.
Castor oil: Robin drinks some brandy and passes it to Larry, who swigs it down. Robin puts castor oil in Pluthero's meal. Larry drinks some more brandy. Then Robin adds Epsom salt. He, Larry, and the cook are all laughing.
Chrissy says Pluthero is only doing his job, being underhand and sneaky. He says he could go up to 400. She says her answer would still be no. He thinks the sauce is very rich and piquant.
Robin worries both that he put in too much castor oil and that nothing seems to be happening. (Like castor oil, Epsom salt can be used as a laxative.) The cook says, "That's what they said about Krakatoa." Larry goes out there and takes the plates away.
Chrissy says Pluthero could stop the development. He wonders if her coffee tastes all right. He's about to make one final offer, but he has to excuse himself to the restroom. Meanwhile the chauffeur answers a call on the car phone.
Pluthero returns to the table and doesn't look well. She says he was about to make the final offer and she was about to refuse. Outside the D. Gabriel something Pub/Trattoria, the chauffeur goes up the steps and hands a written message to a waiter who's not Larry. That waiter gives the message to Pluthero, who reads it and says, "Right away?"
Sincere gesture: We return to Spiros's office, with the silent black secretary and all. Pluthero apologises for being late, but he had to stop off once or twice on the way. He says he's got almost all the houses. There's a small problem with sitting tenants at #6.
Spiros: Communists?
Pluthero: Worse. Idealists.
Spiros says that public relations says that they're not getting good press. He holds up some clippings, probably the articles that the residents of #6 have been reading.
Pluthero, still having internal disturbance, wants to leave, but Spiros tells him to sit down. Spiros is worried this bad PR may affect his knighthood. The phone rings, but Spiros still won't let Pluthero go. The secretary leaves with papers Spiros has been signing.
Spiros says that the GLC (I think the Greater London Council) will grant a preservation order at their next meeting. He tells the person on the phone, "He's here with me now. I haven't told him."
After he hangs up, he smiles and goes over to Pluthero. He says he's been asked to appear on television to defend the project, but he's not going to do it, Pluthero will. He wants Pluthero to tell them the project has been cancelled. It will be a sincere gesture to public opinion. And it's because a certain incompetent was unable to get all six houses before the preservation order.
Pluthero asks, "What if I get all six?" Spiros says the program is at six o'clock, so he has till then.
Spiros wants him to mention how he (Spiros) gives to children's charities. "No, make it dogs." Pluthero dashes into Spiros's private washroom.
We cut to an exterior of a skyscraper as we hear a toilet flush. Then we pan down to the street. Pluthero exits, looking worn out. He gets in the car. He starts to give his destination as Thames Television, Euston Road, then changes it to Myddleton Terrace, #6.
Poor little husbands: We next see Pluthero being let into the building by Mr. Roper. He wants to use the washroom.
While Pluthero's busy with that, George is about to sign the agreement, but Mildred comes home from shopping. She enjoyed having men pressed up against her on the Tube. He says that was "very nice, I'm sure." She got the see-through nightie. She says it'll send his blood pressure up, just from looking at the price tag.
Then she sees the agreement. Pluthero comes in from the washroom. Mildred is very angry.
The girls are in the entryway. Chrissy says she was holding out for 500 but Pluthero left. The Ropers exit from the flat, Mildred yelling at Pluthero for "bullying my poor little husband." But Pluthero claims to be a husband himself, and now that he's had to cancel the project, "think of my wife and kids." He shows a family picture. The women don't buy it.
Pluthero goes down the steps and back to the limo. He tells the chauffeur, "You can have your photograph back, Jenkins."
Robin comes home with groceries. He asks Pluthero how he feels. Pluthero ignores him and tells the chauffeur to take him to Thames Television, Euston Road.
Pluthero says, "You keep your ear to the ground, Jenkins. You know who's on the way up, and who's on the way out." Jenkins puts up the glass divider. Jenkins is played by Bill Sawyer, who has only six credits on IMDB, and he just doesn't look old enough to have done two shorts in 1929 and '30. He probably is the same Bill Sawyer who played a taxi driver and a lorry driver in other movies. He also has an uncredited role as a Puritan in the Hammer horror Twins of Evil.
Celebratory drinks: At the Ropers' later, Mildred is happy. Today is going to be on at six o'clock. She gets the sherry out.
In the kitchen upstairs, Chrissy and Robin are having drinks to celebrate. The doorbell rings and Jo answers it. Mildred has come to invite them down for drinks, but Robin offers her a drink.
Downstairs though, Mr. Roper smoothes out the agreement. He says, "All that money." Upstairs, everyone is laughing and drinking. They believe that this shows that "ordinary men and women can do things." Ordinary man George Roper signs the agreement.
With the redesign of the entryway, we get the trio and Mildred going down the stairs and into the flat through one door, while George sneaks out the other door.
He has trouble starting his car. His wife sees him from the window. And then she sees his signed copy of the agreement.
Slightly goofy music plays as George drives off, with Mildred and the trio running outside, his wife yelling. They see the Thames Studio address mixed in with the agreement papers and Robin says, "This is where Pluthero's gone."
The four of them go over to Larry's car, with the keys left in it.
Jo: Should we ask him first?
Robin: Oh, I'm sure he won't mind.
They drive off, revealing that Larry was lying under the car. He cries, "Oi!"
Thames Television Studio: We see George pull up to the studio, parking next to Pluthero's Rolls. He gets out of his car.
In the lobby, a doorman is on the phone. George goes up to him, so he rings off. George says he's got to see a man, and the man's Rolls is outside. The doorman asks if he has a ticket. Since George doesn't, the doorman throws him out. George says he pays his (television) licence, which is probably a lie rather a parallel-universe truth.
Meanwhile, Pluthero is being made up. Sir Edmund comes in.
We next see George sneaking onto the studio lot on the back on a flat-bed lorry. He falls off holding a donkey piñata.
Larry's car pulls up and everyone gets out. Apparently parking is no problem in London.
Miss World: The doorman stops the four of them in the lobby. Robin claims to be a freaked-out hippie vicar who'll be interviewing Miss World. Chrissy says, "I'm interested in travel and meeting people. And religion." Direct Jo asks where they're filming the Today programme.
The doorman asks for their tickets. Mildred says she wants to catch her husband. But then she recognises the guard as Arthur Mulgrove! He recognises her as Mildred Asquith. The trio sneak out.
Oddly enough, he's not listed by name in the credits, just "Doorman." The actor, Norman Mitchell, was about 55 at the time of this movie and somehow had roles two years after his death in 2001. He often played policeman, as in the aforementioned Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. He'd go on to four appearances on George & Mildred, although probably not as another of Mildred's exes.
As himself: Meanwhile, George encounters Spike Milligan as himself. Milligan acts completely mad, as usual. He was best known for the radio programme The Goon Show. When George tries to find Today, he riffs on that.
Back in the lobby, Arthur says he kept Mildred's photograph. She says she named her budgie for him. She would've replied to his letters, but he never wrote any. He says he didn't want his feelings going through the Army censor.
She says she took up with a butcher's boy.
Arthur: Did anything come of that?
Mildred: Nothing at all. I married him.
(This is consistent with MatH13, where George said he worked for a butcher when he was young.)
On the set of Today, the interviewer comes over. Sir Edmund hopes that it's This Is Your Life, but the large red book is the programme's script. Today was a real show, and Bill Grundy is playing himself, although credited as "Interviewer." He was suspended two years after this movie because of a profanity-filled interview with the Sex Pistols. The programme was cancelled two months later and his career was ruined. The interview with Pluthero and Weir will go a bit more smoothly.
Love Thy Neighbour: The trio meet Spike Milligan, Jo particularly amused by him.
Then George meets Jack Smethurst and Rudolph Walker, the stars of Love Thy Neighbour, a very popular sitcom about two families, one white, one black, living next door to each other. They're talking about who will win in the end, white or black, but they mean chess. When George uses LTN's slur for Walker's character, "nig-nog," Smethurst says, "Don't talk to my friend like that!" George says Smethurst does, on the telly. Walker says Smethurst gets paid for it. George says Walker is just as bad, calling Smethurst white honky and snowflake. After George leaves, Walker says, "I think I fancy a white lady," meaning the cocktail.
Meanwhile, the producer of Today scolds the camera man for acting like a "tit man" as he scans the crowd. The producer is played by Julian Orchard, who probably worked with a lot of tit men, since he did four Carry On movies. His P.A. (production assistant) is played by Berry Cornish, who has only three other screen credits, all of them sounding as minor as this non-speaking role. She should get the award for the most obscure performer in this movie, outdoing the secretary, the Boy Scout, and even the chauffeur.
Second Doorman: A second doorman stands outside the studio for Today. He's played by Michael Robbins, whose most significant role seems to have been as Arthur Rudge on 61 episodes of On the Buses. He asks George if he's invited. When George says yes, he lets him go in. Then he smokes.
Meanwhile, Sir Edmund says to Pluthero that he trusts Pluthero won't say a word about Hazel, Miss Lovett. "I wouldn't want the world to know I've been keeping a young lady in #5." The producer says, "No, you wouldn't, would you?"
The title card for Today has very '70s lettering, that "futuristic" style, a little like this:
Grundy says that they're going to devote the whole evening to the "Myddleton Terrace controversy."
The second doorman tells the trio that he's not allowed to let them in, presumably because filming has started. Then he says he's not allowed to smoke on duty either, or accept gratuities. Robin puts something in the doorman's pocket. He lets them in, then finds the tip is some kind of washer.
Poppet: George tries to signal to Pluthero. Grundy reads from a press cutting where Sir Edmund said that they'll fight them on the planning committees, on the local councils, and never surrender. (On MatH, Robin had already referenced the Churchill speech.) But Sir Edmund no longer stands by that statement. And when Grundy asks Pluthero if the development is socially necessary, he says no.
The trio see Roper, as Grundy tries to understand the switched positions of his guests. Mr. Roper sets the signed agreement on the table. The producer says, "Fred, be a poppet, and get him out, will you?" Mr. Roper is yanked away. Jo says, "He's got the agreement," meaning Pluthero.
Pluthero says that agreement was "arrived at by five of the householders, including--" Then Sir Edmund coughs. "But my superior, Mr. Spiros, who has given several children to dogs' charities, anonymously of course...." Spiros is watching in disgust on his very mod-looking television. Pluthero continues to misspeak, saying that Spiros is also anxious about his knighthood.
Pluthero accidentally tears up Roper's agreement. The trio gloat at Roper. Then Pluthero realises what he's done.
Compensation: A funeral dirge plays as the Spiros signs go down and into a lorry. Robin and Chrissy watch from the window. She says it's a lovely sight.
They turn around, Robin's arm around her as they step away from the window. He asks if she's ever played chess. She says her grandmother taught her.
Jo comes in wearing a blinding pink floral outfit. Robin says everyone is getting compensation. Jo says except for the Ropers. Chrissy says, "Oh, I don't know. I think Mrs. Roper might be getting some."
Downstairs, Mrs. Roper looks out the window. A cab pulls up. She wants George to get the luggage, but he says, "Stuff his luggage." Arthur is here, and he's going to be their lodger. She greets him in her pink dressing gown. She says, "Come inside. George is just dying to see you." He says, "You're looking lovely." George mockingly repeats this. Arthur-the-budgie says, "Thank you." George is surprised, since this seems to be the first time the budgie has ever said anything.
Back upstairs, Jo has left the room, and Chrissy now says she was thinking of another game, and she can't play chess after all. Robin takes out a set. We learn the value of the pieces. Pawn = pair of tights. Bishop = skirt. Queen = "well, we'll sort that out." He says the whole object of the game is to try to mate. He puts his arm around her. She looks amused, skeptical, and intrigued.
Closing: We see the exterior of the row of houses. A version of the theme song plays as the credits roll. The worst rhyme this time is "must rearrange things/ not to estrange him." And the singer asks the musical question, "With all the little things we shared and said/ Right from the start/ How can I tell him what's here in my heart?"
We learn that this movie was made at Elstree Studio, Hertfordshire, England, which I assume means the peculiar interiors, and not the shots of the Thames Studio and other London locations.
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