My review was written in March 1988 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.
"Consuming Passions" is a thoroughly unfunny misfire, equating poor taste with black humor. British-made effort from Samuel Goldwyn Co. (of which the late Goldwyn Senior would clearly disapprove) integrates cornball elements from such warhorses as "Sweeney Todd" into a very flat satire that is barely suitable for midnight screenings.
Pic originally was developed with the active participation of several Monty Python members, with Goldcrest (since departed from the project) involved as well unr the working title "The Chocolate Factory". Final result is credited as based on a (little-known) play "Secrets" by Pythonites Michael Palin and Terry Jones, but Paul D. Zimmeman ("The King of Comedy") and Andrew Davies' script is witless and vulgar.
Nominal plot, a sketch stretched to feature length, has naive management trainee Tyler Butterworth arriving at Freddie Jones' chocolate factory and accidentally pushing three workmen into a vat. Unable to stop the assembly line, Butterworth to his horror discovers the men have been processed into the first batch of Passionelles chocolates, a brainchild of new company manager Jonathan Pryce.
Under Giles Foster's mechanical direction, every plot twist is telegraphed at least a reel ahead: Jones and Butterworth's unsuccessful, frenzied attempt to retrieve the tainted chocolates; test results which prove that only the cannibal-contents Passionelles meet with consumer approval; lengthy segue to Butterworth's "Burke and Hare" assignments to fetch corpses to keep the popular 6% human content Passionelles in production, etc.
Only surprise here is top-billed Vanessa Redgrave, taking an ill-advised stab at comedy by playing, with Melina Mercouri-esque voice, a Maltese woman whose insatiable sexual appetite gets Butterworth in trouble. Redgrave's extraneous cameo, at first amusing, is padded via endless repetition and becomes embarrassing. Toilet humor here makes the "Carry On" films seem a paragon of good taste by comparison, and at least they were amusing.
Pryce gets a few cheap laughs from his garish clothing, but his facial tics and affected vocal pattern (performing each sentence with "Yeah!") are tiresome. Jones hams to no effect and Prunella Scales, erstwhile perfect comedy foil for John Cleese in his "Fawlty Towers" tv serie, has little to do as a secretary wearing funny-looking miniskirts. Sammi Davis, as Butterworth's romantic interest and the closest to a normal character, is very appealing with a Liverpudlian accent.
Helping to sink the dubious enterprise is casting of Butterworth in the lead role -he simply isn't funny in a part that would require an established talent on the level of Michael Palin to carry the picture. Tech credits are solid down the line, offering needed visual distraction.
A tasteless sight gag involving an AIDS-prevention warning got the only belly laugh at the screening.
