Film Review
After satisfactory pillorying two of Britain's age old institutions,
the army and the legal profession, in
Private's Progress (1956) and
Brothers in Law (1957), the
Boulting brothers directed their satirical gaze towards another,
academia, for the third of their successful film comedies. Freely
adapted from Kingsley Amis's best-selling novel of the same title,
Lucky Jim offers up another
abundant helping of comic hijinks, with the Boultings' main star Ian
Carmichael perfectly chosen to play the accident-prone,
anti-establishment title character.
With Terry-Thomas providing comedy back-up as he had done (superbly) in
the previous Boulting comedies, and Hugh Griffith revelling in the part
of Jim's heavily eyebrow-endowed nemesis Professor Welch,
Lucky Jim proves to be a boisterous
comedy with plenty of charm, although its uneven episodic structure
prevents it from having the polish of the Boultings' previous
films. The film's main flaw is that it lacks the satirical bite
of Amis's book and ends up as little more than a series of slapstick
situations, often with a dud punchline that is hardly worth waiting
for. For those not familiar with the novel that inspired it,
Lucky Jim is an engaging enough
romp, but it somewhat misses the point that Amis had in mind.
© James Travers 2013
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Film Synopsis
Jim Dixon, a young history professor, is approaching the end of his
year-long contract at a typical British redbrick university. He
knows his superior, Professor Welch, does not approve of his modern
teaching methods and doubts if he will be offered a permanent
position. Jim is taken aback when Welch asks him to give the
memorial lecture and invites him to attend a party at his house.
Eager to make a good impression, Jim soon finds himself a fish out of
water in Welch's house, and one calamitous situation leads to
another. He soon manages to get on the wrong side of Welch's son
Bertrand, a pretentious modern writer, and falls hopelessly in love
with the latter's Canadian girlfriend, Christine...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.