General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins

The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British comedy anthology film that presents seven sketches, each illustrating one of the seven deadly sins: avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. It was directed and produced by the comic actor Graham Stark, made by Tigon British Film Productions, and written by an ensemble of leading British comedy writers including Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Spike Milligan, Graham Chapman, and Barry Cryer.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	United Kingdom, November 1971; certificate A; 107 minutes; color¹
Director and producer	Graham Stark, in his debut as a film director²^•³
Production company	Tigon British Film Productions, a horror-film firm better known for rivaling Amicus¹^•²
Writers	Graham Chapman and Barry Cryer (Gluttony, Wrath), John Esmonde and Bob Larbey (Avarice), Dave Freeman (Envy), Graham Stark (Lust), Ray Galton and Alan Simpson (Pride), Spike Milligan (Sloth)²
Cast highlights	Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe, Leslie Phillips, Harry H. Corbett, Ian Carmichael, Alfie Bass, Spike Milligan, Stephen Lewis, Julie Ege¹
Commercial result	A box office failure that ended Stark's directorial career; it found no U.S. buyer until 1975²

Spoilers

The seven segments

The film opens with Avarice, written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, later the creators of the sitcom The Good Life. Bruce Forsyth plays Clayton, chauffeur to the greedy tycoon Mr Elsinore (Paul Whitsun-Jones); when a 50p coin falls down a drain, Elsinore orders Clayton to retrieve it, drawing in a fisherman (Roy Hudd), a policewoman (Joan Sims), and a sewer worker (Bernard Bresslaw).¹^•²

Envy, written by Dave Freeman, stars Harry Secombe as Stanley, a man who schemes to force a couple to sell their home so that his pools-winning wife can buy it; one scheme involves a fake local newspaper reporting a motorway through their garden.¹^•⁵ Gluttony casts Leslie Phillips as an executive whose love of food keeps him from spending time with his female boss (Julie Ege).¹

Lust, written by Stark himself, is more or less a one-man play for Harry H. Corbett as Ambrose Twombly, "the fastest lighter on the Bakerloo", a lonely bachelor unlucky in his search for a date; the Underground scenes were shot at Aldwych station with a set for the ticket hall at Pinewood.¹^•⁶ Pride, a remake of the Comedy Playhouse episode "Impasse" written by Galton and Simpson, stars Ian Carmichael and Alfie Bass as drivers whose cars meet head-to-head on a narrow country lane and neither will reverse.¹ The Lust and Pride segments had originally been television plays in the 1961 series Comedy Playhouse.⁶

Sloth was written by and stars Spike Milligan, presenting a series of mainly silent, absurdist examples of the sin, with Marty Feldman and Ronnie Barker in minor roles.¹^•⁷ Wrath closes the film, with Stephen Lewis playing the officious park-keeper Jarvis, a role close to his On the Buses character, pitted against elderly gents George (Ronald Fraser) and Kenneth (Arthur Howard) who try to kill him.¹^•⁷

Production

Stark, a comic actor best known as a collaborator of Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films, made the film as his first feature as director.⁴^•³ The title plays on the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, and the film was shot at Pinewood Studios with some location filming in the surrounding area.² Each sketch is separated by animated sequences in a style compared to Terry Gilliam's interludes in Monty Python's Flying Circus; the animator was Bob Godfrey, who later made Roobarb and Henry's Cat for the BBC.⁴ The closing-credits theme, "Envy, Greed An' Gluttony", was written by Roy Budd and Jack Fishman and sung by the band Middle of the Road.¹

The film was a departure for Tigon British, a company whose usual output was horror. One reviewer notes that its structure of themed stories with twist endings, in which the greedy and wrathful receive their comeuppance, has more in common with the contemporary horror anthologies of Amicus, Tigon's rival, than with earlier comic anthologies.²

Reception and legacy

The film was not a commercial success, and the failure brought a swift end to Stark's directorial career; Tigon later released some of the individual stories as short supporting features for its adult films to recover money.² Reviewers have consistently found the film uneven. A retrospective at British Comedy Guide judged Milligan's Sloth segment "a treat" and called the film a fascinating time capsule of 1970s British comedy, while noting its Benny Hill-style treatment of scantily clad women as a period marker.⁴ The film-authority review described it as "a snapshot of 70's British comedy talent, even if there's precious few actual laughs", singling out Milligan's Sloth sketch, with its silent jokes and discussion of walnuts, as worth seeking out.³ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 0% Tomatometer from a single review.⁷

Two segments draw the strongest praise. Pride is called the most satisfying segment and Sloth the most distinctive.² Corbett's Lust performance has been singled out by the actor and writer Reece Shearsmith, who cited the film among the influences on The League of Gentlemen, praising "the heartbreaking performance from Harry H. Corbett" as "an example of brilliant acting and pathos in a very few short beats".⁸

One retrospective source dates the film's release to 1973; the BFI, British Comedy Guide's film database, and contemporary records such as Harry Secombe's April 1971 contract with Tigon all place it in 1971.⁴^•⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026