moonspinner55 Review of The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box (1966)

Muted comic chaos...very British, and with several dryly engaging sequences

[6/10 · 8 January 2011]

Suggested by Robert Louis Stevenson's and Lloyd Osbourne's story, this outrageous comedy involves a pair of estranged, elderly brothers in Victorian England--the last two survivors of a decades old lottery--who, at different points, are thought deceased by their relatives, two of whom will go to any lengths to retrieve the boodle. Director Bryan Forbes (who also produced) wouldn't be my pick to helm a crazy-quilt British farce involving comedic misunderstandings, a carriage race in funeral buggies, and a mad scramble for money in a cemetery! Forbes had never cut loose before (and hasn't done so since), and so his expected 'gentleman-like' pacing occasionally rears its head. Still this script, penned by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, opens with some high black comedy...and Forbes really seems to get into the general silliness of the situation. The all-star cast (including Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Peter Sellers in a guest role as a befuddled doctor) is encouraged to play it over-the-top, and there are laughs nearly all the way through. **1/2 from ****