The Wrong Box (1966)

Laughs out loud throughout the script, a great cast and beautifully shot. I was intrigued that with so many fantastic comedic actors I had never heard of this film. There's really nothing novel about the plot or the characterizations but this movie just clicks and goes right to the top of the list for the madcap/caper/farce genre. Peacock steals every scene he's in. Really enjoyable film.

A madcap cross-country chase for an inherited fortune by two elderly brothers and their many offspring ought to be funnier than this, especially with so many familiar names and faces along for the ride. Viewers with a weakness for the mugging style of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore might be entertained, but others may find themselves longing for more scenes with trivia freak Ralph Richardson, and a bigger part for Peter Sellers, seen all-too briefly as a dotty MD with a fondness for cats. Elsewhere the various routine plot complications and misunderstandings are (at best) fitfully amusing, but the presentation is rarely more than just plain silly, with coy title cards ("Disaster Ensues!") providing a labored chuckle along the way. The script was based on a Robert Louis Stevenson short story, which would explain the otherwise gratuitous Victorian setting and trappings.

If this is British humor, forget it.I thought I had seen miserable films and then I found the definition of miserable-this film. This is an absolute colossal bomb.In 1963's 'The Mad World' we saw what people would go through for money. This film reminded me of the old adage-Where there's a will, there is family.This daffy film begins with children being drawn into a lottery. The last survivor wins. It then proceeds to show how many of these youngsters grew and met untimely deaths-through wars, mountain climbings, cave-ins, duels gone wrong,etc. This in itself became ridiculous and absolutely tedious to view.Two old brothers survive-John Mills and Ralph Richardson. The problem is not only with these 2 nit-wits but their grandsons. When one brother is thought to be killed in a train wreck, the other part of the family things they will fool the other brother's family by chicanery and therefore obtain the money.While all this misery is going on, there's a strangler in London on the loose.The best part of this film was when the screen lit up-The End.

Funny and often laugh out loud hilarious story of two brothers (John Mills and Ralph Richardson), one of whom must outlive the other in order to win a Tontine started at their boys school and going to the final survivor of the class. What transpires is "The Wrong Box," a 1966 film directed by Bryan Forbes and also starring Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Wilfred Lawson, Nanette Newman (Mrs. Forbes) and Peter Sellers.The first ten minutes or so of the movie is hilarious, as it shows the demise of the other students over the years. Regarding the surviving Finsbury brothers, one side of has Caine and his grandfather Mills, who is desperate to win, so he summons his brother to his "deathbed" in order to kill him, in one of the funniest scenes in the movie. On the other side, Cook and Moore are Richardson's nephews, who have devoted themselves to keeping their uncle alive. They needn't have bothered because he can't be killed anyway. He walks away from a train crash, but there's a mix-up, and he's believed dead. The nephews are desperate to cover this up until Mills dies. When they go to bury what they think is his body, Cook makes Moore do it rather than put his hands in the dirt, insisting "petal-soft hands are the mark of a great ornithologist." Both Richardson, as the fact-spewing brother, and Mills, as the crazy old coot with murder in his heart, are excellent, as is the rest of the cast. Michael Caine is young and handsome here. Peter Sellers as a shady, cat-loving doctor is a riot. Wilfred Lawson, who plays Mills' butler, nearly steals the film as the elderly servant so old he practically has rigor mortis. One of the best moments is when Michael Caine sends him to the door telling him to go slowly - it already takes him ten minutes to get there, and Lawson starts to go to the door and mumbles to himself, "I'll slow it down." Too much. The pretty ingénue, Newman, had been married to director Forbes for ten years before the making of this film. She's still married to him.Lots of fun, with a crazy finale befitting the film.