Its a story of two older cousins -- John Mills and Ralph Richardson -- the surviving one of which pair will inherit a fortune, and the fortune will of course be passed on to his younger relatives. The two cousins haven't spoken in forty years. One of them, Mills, is an angry, sickly fellow. Richardson is an old bore. All of them, and all of their greedy young relatives, are proper Victorian types. There is a mix-up in which both men are mistakenly thought to be dead. Wrong boxes are shipped around from site to site. Two of the younger relatives (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) connive to have Mills declared dead so that their living uncle can inherit the ten thousand pounds. It gets kind of complicated and winds up in a rattling chase of horse-drawn hearses and other vehicles, some containing dead bodies in pianos, others containing boxes full of money.
I don't know why this doesn't quite clear the bar but it's simply not as funny as it ought to be. It was released in 1966. "Tom Jones", a wildly successful period picture, was released two years earlier, and I suppose this was an attempt to follow up. But "Tom Jones" was a raucous story set in Georgian England of 1745. People fell into mud. They ate like animals before they copulated. And that is definitely NOT Victorian England, and you can't develop a successful parody in the same way. How can you exaggerate a proper and prim Victorian man or woman? Make him or her still MORE prim? You wind up with an ice sculpture. The humor is so understated that it isn't very amusing. (A woman glimpses a man's bare arm and fairly swoons. Twice.) Maybe, given the script, they should have gone the way not of "Tom Jones" but of some of the earlier Ealing comedies. Instead of zeroing in on mugging and flat jokes, had the story been played straight and ironic, it might have worked. As it is, the fulsome musical score, lush color photography, and row upon row of fine actors, are more of a distraction than a virtue.
The jokes are milked for what they are worth, and they're not all bad. Two examples.
Michael Caine is invited to the house of his inamorata and finds the house full of eggs of all sizes and colors. Splashy title card: "AT LAST! ALONE IN A HOUSE FULL OF EGGS!") Nanette Newman: "My uncle collects eggs." Caine (goggling): "Very commendable." Newman: "I find them obscene." When Caine leaves, Newman says politely and a little breathlessly that it was nice meeting him. Caine: "Not at all. I hope to see much more of you." Newman gasps at his boldness.
Well, here's another I found amusing. A young man, the grandson of an obscenely wealthy industrial baron, is holding his grandfather's wheelchair at the top of a hill. "When I die," croaks the old fellow, with an arthritic flourish, "all this will be yours" -- and he indicates the ugliest, smokiest, smoggiest, brickiest, most smokestack sprouting landscapre one has ever seen. "Yes, grandfather," smiles the young man. He releases the wheelchair that trundles down the hill to its offscreen fate.
Two cast members, however, make memorable every scene they're in. Wilfred Lawson as the aging butler, trembling and shuffling, whose every utterance is a strangled attempt at speech. (He was good in "Tom Jones," too.) And, especially, Peter Sellers as a drunken and discombobulated, disreputable doctor who performs abortions and helps poison people who have become nuisances. (He MUST have improvised some of his business.) He tries to sign a phony death certificate under the coaching of Peter Cook and finally manages to print out his name in ugly, scraggling letters. W. Pratt MD. Then he peruses it with half-stunned satisfaction and reads it aloud -- "W. Prattmd." I mean, he incorporates the "MD" into his last name. No other single gag matches that one.
I don't intend saying that this is a boring film. A viewer doesn't get a sense of failure at every turn, only that so many of the jokes aren't as funny as the script tries to make them, and some are plain silly. It's very genteel, and not at all irritating. Goes down like a draught of the black balm. You might enjoy it, so many other people have.
On a third viewing, though some of the gags remain without impact, others seem more amusing. Maybe the milieu of my brain cells has changed with age or some chemical manipulation. In any case, I've bumped my rating up a notch.
I don't know why this doesn't quite clear the bar but it's simply not as funny as it ought to be. It was released in 1966. "Tom Jones", a wildly successful period picture, was released two years earlier, and I suppose this was an attempt to follow up. But "Tom Jones" was a raucous story set in Georgian England of 1745. People fell into mud. They ate like animals before they copulated. And that is definitely NOT Victorian England, and you can't develop a successful parody in the same way. How can you exaggerate a proper and prim Victorian man or woman? Make him or her still MORE prim? You wind up with an ice sculpture. The humor is so understated that it isn't very amusing. (A woman glimpses a man's bare arm and fairly swoons. Twice.) Maybe, given the script, they should have gone the way not of "Tom Jones" but of some of the earlier Ealing comedies. Instead of zeroing in on mugging and flat jokes, had the story been played straight and ironic, it might have worked. As it is, the fulsome musical score, lush color photography, and row upon row of fine actors, are more of a distraction than a virtue.
The jokes are milked for what they are worth, and they're not all bad. Two examples.
Michael Caine is invited to the house of his inamorata and finds the house full of eggs of all sizes and colors. Splashy title card: "AT LAST! ALONE IN A HOUSE FULL OF EGGS!") Nanette Newman: "My uncle collects eggs." Caine (goggling): "Very commendable." Newman: "I find them obscene." When Caine leaves, Newman says politely and a little breathlessly that it was nice meeting him. Caine: "Not at all. I hope to see much more of you." Newman gasps at his boldness.
Well, here's another I found amusing. A young man, the grandson of an obscenely wealthy industrial baron, is holding his grandfather's wheelchair at the top of a hill. "When I die," croaks the old fellow, with an arthritic flourish, "all this will be yours" -- and he indicates the ugliest, smokiest, smoggiest, brickiest, most smokestack sprouting landscapre one has ever seen. "Yes, grandfather," smiles the young man. He releases the wheelchair that trundles down the hill to its offscreen fate.
Two cast members, however, make memorable every scene they're in. Wilfred Lawson as the aging butler, trembling and shuffling, whose every utterance is a strangled attempt at speech. (He was good in "Tom Jones," too.) And, especially, Peter Sellers as a drunken and discombobulated, disreputable doctor who performs abortions and helps poison people who have become nuisances. (He MUST have improvised some of his business.) He tries to sign a phony death certificate under the coaching of Peter Cook and finally manages to print out his name in ugly, scraggling letters. W. Pratt MD. Then he peruses it with half-stunned satisfaction and reads it aloud -- "W. Prattmd." I mean, he incorporates the "MD" into his last name. No other single gag matches that one.
I don't intend saying that this is a boring film. A viewer doesn't get a sense of failure at every turn, only that so many of the jokes aren't as funny as the script tries to make them, and some are plain silly. It's very genteel, and not at all irritating. Goes down like a draught of the black balm. You might enjoy it, so many other people have.
On a third viewing, though some of the gags remain without impact, others seem more amusing. Maybe the milieu of my brain cells has changed with age or some chemical manipulation. In any case, I've bumped my rating up a notch.