The Wrong Box (1966)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Bryan Forbes

Writers:

Robert Louis Stevenson (suggested by a novel by) and
Lloyd Osbourne (suggested by a novel by) ...

Release Date:

4 July 1966 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Virtuous maidens...cunning cousins...dastardly deeds...bodies in barrels...and boxes and boxes of boxes!

Plot:

In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other... or can be made to have seemed to do so!

Plot Keywords:

Tontine | Brass Bed | Reward | Funeral Dirge | Tuba

Awards:

Won BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 nominations

Cast

Jeremy Lloyd	...	Brian Allen Harvey
James Villiers	...	Sydney Whitcombe Sykes
Graham Stark	...	Ian Scott Fife
Richard Gregory	...	Leicester Young Fielding (as Dick Gregory)
Nicholas Parsons	...	Alan Frazer Scrope
Willoughby Goddard	...	James Whyte Wragg
Valentine Dyall	...	Oliver Pike Harmsworth
Leonard Rossiter	...	Vyvyan Alistair Montague
Hamilton Dyce	...	Derek Lloyd Peter Digby
Hilton Edwards	...	Lawyer
Timothy Bateson	...	Clerk
Donald Oliver	...	Gunner Sergeant
Totti Truman Taylor	...	Lady at Launching
Jeremy Roughton	...	Bugler
Frank Singuineau	...	Native Bearer

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Swahili

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:U | USA:Approved | Finland:K-8

Filming Locations:

Englefield Green, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Salamander Film Productions

Trivia:

Peter Cook's wife, Wendy was nine months pregnant when filming began. Director Bryan Forbes promised them that he would let Peter leave the set as soon as Wendy went into labor. He kept his word and Peter made it to the hospital just in time for the birth of his daughter, Daisy. Forbes, Dudley Moore, Michael Caine and Peter Sellers filled his dressing room with flowers and champagne in celebration of Daisy's birth when he returned to work.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Just before the train crash you can see the smoke and steam going back into the engines, signifying the trains were in reverse and the film played backwards.

Quotes:

Morris Finsbury: I collect eggs, Doctor.
Doctor Pratt: Eggs, yes. Oh, I enjoy an egg myself, yes. They don't make good pets, though; you can never get them in at night.

Movie Connections:

References Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Soundtrack:

A Bird in a Gilded Cage

And the word "whip" appears 146 times in the Bible

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote novels that studied character and its flaws: Long John Silver in "Treasure Island", Aleck Breck Stewart in "Kidnapped" and "David Balfour", James and Henry Durie in "The Master Of Ballentrae", Dr. Henry Jeckyll/Mr. Edward Hyde.... His best novels show the ambiguity of character. Yet with his interest in melodramatics he should have been a natural for writing mystery and detective stories, like his contemporaries Conan Doyle, Gilbert Chesterton, and Ernest Brahmah. They concentrated their gifts on character developments on their central story figures (Holmes and Watson, Father Brown, Max Carrados), but the basic plot development is what pulls the story along for all of them. Stevenson pulled the story plot to develop the characters instead.

Except once - "The Wrong Box". It is Stevenson's spoof on mystery and detective fiction. It was not his novel alone, but the first of three he wrote with his stepson Lloyd Osborne (to whom he told the story of "Treasure Island" before he wrote it down). Stevenson is telling the story of Masterman and Joseph Finsbury, the last two survivors of a special type of insurance form called a "tontine". It's an elaborate wager where a bunch of people put up a sum of money individually, and the last survivor gets the bulk of it. Masterman is home bound, and Joseph is a lively old bore who loves to talk and show off his preposterous knowledge of trivia (Ralph Richardson brings out the fact about the word "whip" when riding with a man holding a "whip"). Masterman (John Mills) lives with his grandson Michael (Michael Caine), and Joseph with his two greedy nephews (Morris and John - Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and his niece Julia (Nanette Newman). Joseph does not really care about the tontine, but Masterman wants it - and is willing to speed the demise of Joseph to do it. Morris and John have to keep Joseph alive (which is not unlikely - he is in good health). Michael is not quite sure what is going on with his irascible grandfather, and Julia just knows she dislikes her two cousins Morris and John (but she really likes Michael). So the stage is set for the comedy. Along the way we meet other characters who are colorful: Dr. Pratt (Peter Sellers) - who at the drop of a hat will tell you about how he fell from medical grace to the backstreet he resides in; Peacock (Wilfred Lawson), Masterman's butler, who makes the average turtle look like it's turbocharged; the police Detective (Tony Hancock) - who can't put together a coherent idea if his life depended on it; and ...the Bournmouth Strangler (the story is from 1888, so we can guess who this character is based on).

It is a marvelous send-up on Victorian England, taking in the empire (notice the beginning when we see the demises of various members of the tontine), to the problems of railway traffic, talkative relatives, and body disposal in London in the 1880s. That the novel is not quite like the film does not matter (Michael is not a medical student but a clever barrister in the story, and John's relationship with Morris deteriorates in the story due to some money troubles), but this does not matter. It is a fun movie and well worth seeing.