Just My Luck (1957) - film review

Norman Hackett, a lowly jewellers’ assistant, is in love with the girl who works in the shop across the street.  Although he has no money, he constantly fantasises about buying her a jewelled necklace.  One day, he meets a bookmaker, Mr Lumb, who tells him that he could win over a thousand pounds from a one pound stake on an accumulator bet.  To Norman’s simple mind, this seems too good to be true, so he raids his mum’s holiday fund and places the bet, not yet realising that his jockey must win six races for him to scoop the jackpot.  Norman is delighted when the first five races go his way but he is convinced that he will lose everything on the last race.  His only hope is to persuade the owner of the horse he has backed, an eccentric elderly spinster, to sell him the horse...

Norman Wisdom, British cinema’s answer to Charlie Chaplin, had yet to hit the big time when he made Just My Luck, but already his screen persona had crystallised into the likeable working class gump character that would delight film audiences in Britain for over a decade.  Some may question whether Wisdom deserves to be ranked alongside the other grand masters of film comedy but he was loved and admired by many, and his films have an enduring charm, providing a glimpse of how life was lived by most ordinary people in England in the 1950s and 60s.

As in all of his films, Wisdom is supported by a cast of talented British actors, including some very familiar names – Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims, known for their frequent appearances in, respectively, the Doctor and Carry On films.  Margaret Rutherford puts in a beautiful cameo appearance, playing an eccentric dowager with a penchant for exotic animals.  Edward Chapman terrorises little Norman for the first time; he would play the tyrannical Mr Grimsdale in three subsequent Norman Wisdom films, notably The Early Bird (1965), regarded by many as the high point of Wisdom’s career.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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