A Private Function [Blu-ray]

A Private Function is set in a postwar England sagging under the weight of restrictive food rationing. Under the watchful eye of Food Ministry inspector Bill Paterson, no one in his Yorkshire district dares do business with the Black Market. But he can't completely stop the food hoarders, of which social-climbing Maggie Smith is the most brazen. When Smith wants to appropriate a pig that is being fattened for slaughter in direct defiance of local laws, she enlists the reluctant aid of her husband, Michael Palin. Fetching the porker is one matter; hiding it in Palin and Smith's house is another. This zany central situation serves as the hub of a film that takes scattered satirical shots at bureaucracy, hypocrisy and too-rigid class consciousness. Throw in a few cruel, gross-out jokes, and you have a crazy concoction in the fine old Monty Python tradition. It's clear throughout that screenwriter Alan Bennett fully intended for the title A Private Function to have a double meaning.