The Operation (TV film)

The Operation is a 1973 British TV movie for BBC1s Play for Today about an asset stripper trying to buy up a row of houses.

The males had got lost somewhere between John Osbornes Angry Young Men and some future sequel to Last Tango in Paris... We had wife swappings, a casino, a lavatory, an Irish hideaway, Rolls Royces and other environmental titbits... Influenced no doubt by the presence of a film star in the cast the camera lingered self consciously on profiles when it was not lingering self consciously even more on the furniture. George Lazenby, the star in question, brought to the part of the magnate a lazy, self conscious insolence that suited the odious fellow well. The rest had little to do except let the camera wander over their faces.As insulting a piece of meretricious rubbish as I have seen in a long and weary while... a jejune fantasy of power and wealth. George Lazenby... acts with all the life and conviction of a garden gnome... Why not just laugh the whole thing off as a silly piece of nonsense? Why feel angry? Because this was put out by the BBC as a serious treatment of serious themes, a play for today, God help us. In this context I found it insulting. ........

Source: Wikipedia