`STIFF UPPER LIPS' TAKES ON THE BRITISH.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

English heritage movies sure could use a good shaking up. Until something which does that comes along, ``Stiff Upper Lips'' will have to do.

The British farce takes a few potent jabs at the boring pretensions that ``Chariots of Fire,'' ``Jude'' and the Merchant/Ivory films, among others, deem so bloody important. Austen, Forster and Lawrence tropes that have been cinematically calcified into cliches all get a good thrashing.

Trouble is, director Gary Sinyor and his co-writer Paul Simpkin, while hardly dummies, fail to assault the Britflicks at their own high level of intelligence. Of all the genres to lampoon, this one requires the cleverest approach.

But outside of a few choice broadsides at class inequity and blinkered worldviews - without, sadly, linking them to the audience snobs who mistake this stuff for cinematic art - ``Lips'' mainly traffics in sexual burlesque and making fun of twits.

The film's lineup of addled aristocrats includes well-bred young lady Emily (Georgina Cates), her Aunt Agnes (``Fawlty Towers' '' Prunella Scales) who's desperate to get the girl properly married off, oblivious brother Edward (Samuel West, who's actually appeared in films like ``Carrington'' and ``Howards End'') and Ed's school chum Cedric (Robert Portal), a spiff so stiff he even swims in a full suit of clothes.

It's 1908, so of course no one knows anything about sex. Cedric is supposed to be the hard-to-please Emily's last-ditch suitable suitor, but she hates how he constantly quotes Homer and, besides, he has stronger feelings (which, naturally, he doesn't understand) for Edward. Edward might reciprocate his friend's affections, but he has even less of a clue about what that might mean (his diary entries are about teddy bears, when they're about anything at all).

What to do, then, but take the Grand Tour? Everyone decamps for Italy, accompanied by the new working-class manservant George (Sean Pertwee). Emily, of course, has her requisite erotic awakening in the Mediterranean climate, and George is the only English-speaking bloke around who knows what to do about it. Once he does, however, it's ...

Off to India!

Here Aunt Agnes enjoys her own little fling with dithering colonial pasha Horace (Peter Ustinov), while Emily has trouble keeping her breakfast down. George sees no reason why class differences should stand in the way of true love and marriage, but everybody else does, so there's another problem.

Will the sun never set on these yearning hearts?

We're not supposed to care, but the film would have been smarter - and funnier - if it had somehow managed to make us care. After all, despite their overreliance on furnishings and self-squelching performances, the ``Remains of the Days,'' ``Emmas'' and ``Room With a Views'' of the world do manage to engage our emotions while smartly examining their characters' foibles.

And they can often be quite funny about it.

``Stiff Upper Lips'' takes on a deserving foe. Unfortunately, it's outclassed by the very subjects it strives to skewer.

The Facts

The film: ``Stiff Upper Lips'' (unrated; nudity, sex).

The stars: Georgina Cates, Sam Pertwee, Prunella Scales, Samuel West, Robert Portal, Peter Ustinov.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Gary Sinyor. Written by Sinyor and Paul Simpkin. Produced by Sinyor and Jeremy Bolt. Released by Cowboy Booking International.

Running time: One hour, 26 minutes.

Playing: Westside Pavilion, West L.A.

Our rating: Two and a half stars.