The Wrong Box is a British film comedy first released in 1966, directed by Bryan Forbes.  The film is based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and stars John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


In the mid-1800s, the parents of children attending an exclusive public school each contributes one thousand pounds to a tontine investment scheme.  The beneficiary of the scheme will be the child who outlives all of his peers.  Many years later, only two members of the tontine are still alive, the brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury.  On his deathbed, Masterman summons his brother to his house so that he can murder him, ensuring that his adopted son Michael, a poor medical student, will inherit the fortune.  Joseph’s two greedy nephews, Morris and John, are just as determined to get their hands on the money, and they are prepared to do anything to ensure that Masterman is the first to meet his maker.  Unfortunately, on the way to London, the train carrying Joseph and his two nephews is derailed.  Morris and John mistake the mangled remains of a serial killer for their uncle and hastily revise their plans.  All they need to do is to put the body into storage for a few days, forge a death certificate, and reveal the body once Masterman has died.  What they do not realise is that Masterman and Joseph are both very much alive, and intend to stay that way...

Arguably one of the maddest films ever to come out of a British film studio, The Wrong Box brings together some of the best-known comedic actors of the period for what is essentially no more than a gloriously anarchic bit of fun.  It is hard to say which is less likely, that the film was based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, or that it was directed by Bryan Forbes, the man who had given us such soberingly realist films as Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and King Rat (1965).  Suffice it to say that this is a film that had absolutely no intention of taking itself seriously.  There’s more barking insanity here than in the entire history of Battersea Dogs Home.

The cast list reads like a Who’s Who of British film talent of the 1960s.  What other film can boast such diverse personalities as Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock?  (Amusingly, Richardson only agreed to appear in the film if he could wear the same jacket that he wore in Doctor Zhivago, the film he had just made for David Lean.)  Admittedly, the cast and crew did get a little carried away with themselves – the characters are ludicrous comic book creations and the humour does degenerate to delinquent silliness towards the end.  But, mad and chaotic as it is, The Wrong Box delivers the laughs by the cartload and is a fun-filled romp from start to finish.  

Wilfrid Lawson (despite being pickled in alcohol whilst making the film) steals every scene he is in as the moribund butler, even managing to out-stage Michael Caine (no mean feat).  There are some delightful cameos from the likes of Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier and Leonard Rossiter, but the best laughs are provided by Peter Sellers, who is hilarious as a (supposedly) venal cat-loving baby-killing doctor, who uses kittens as a cheap alternative to blotting paper.   Tony Hancock is perhaps underused in what would be his last film appearance, but you can’t get everything.   The Wrong Box may not be a masterpiece (in fact it was a major flop when it was first released in the UK) but it is a rollicking eruption of madcap absurdity, and a compendium of some of the silliest gags and most outrageous performances you will ever see in a British film (outside the Carry Ons).

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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