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Lucky Jim

  • 1957
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 35m
IMDb RATING
6.0/10
760
YOUR RATING
Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
Comedy

Jim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get e... Read allJim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with unexciting but neurotic Margaret Peel, a friend of the Professor's. All-in-a... Read allJim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with unexciting but neurotic Margaret Peel, a friend of the Professor's. All-in-all, the pub is the only friendly place to be. His misery is completed at a dreadful weeken... Read all

  • Director
    • John Boulting
  • Writers
    • Kingsley Amis
    • Patrick Campbell
    • Jeffrey Dell
  • Stars
    • John Welsh
    • Ronald Cardew
    • Hugh Griffith
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.0/10
    760
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • John Boulting
    • Writers
      • Kingsley Amis
      • Patrick Campbell
      • Jeffrey Dell
    • Stars
      • John Welsh
      • Ronald Cardew
      • Hugh Griffith
    • 26User reviews
    • 4Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos12

    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Terry-Thomas in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Sharon Acker, Ian Carmichael, and Hugh Griffith in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Sharon Acker and Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Ian Carmichael in Lucky Jim (1957)
    Lucky Jim (1957)

    Top cast

    Edit
    John Welsh
    John Welsh
    • The Principal
    • (as John Welch)
    Ronald Cardew
    • Registrar
    Hugh Griffith
    Hugh Griffith
    • Professor Welch
    Kenneth Griffith
    Kenneth Griffith
    • Cyril Johns
    Ian Carmichael
    Ian Carmichael
    • Jim Dixon
    Jeremy Hawk
    Jeremy Hawk
    • Bill Atkinson
    Penny Morrell
    • Miss Wilson
    John Cairney
    John Cairney
    • Roberts
    Maureen Connell
    Maureen Connell
    • Margaret Peel
    Reginald Beckwith
    Reginald Beckwith
    • University Porter
    Jean Anderson
    Jean Anderson
    • Mrs. Welch
    Ian Wilson
    Ian Wilson
    • Glee Singer
    Sharon Acker
    Sharon Acker
    • Christine Callaghan
    Terry-Thomas
    Terry-Thomas
    • Bertrand Welch
    Clive Morton
    Clive Morton
    • Sir Hector Gore-Urquhart
    Charles Lamb
    • Contractor
    Henry B. Longhurst
    • Professor Hutchinson
    • (as Henry Longhurst)
    Jeremy Longhurst
    • Waiter
    • Director
      • John Boulting
    • Writers
      • Kingsley Amis
      • Patrick Campbell
      • Jeffrey Dell
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      At 46 Terry-Thomas was actually a year older than Hugh Griffith, who played his father. Jean Anderson, playing his mother, was only 4 years older than Thomas.
    • Goofs
      The taxi used by Jim and Christine when leaving the ball has 'Taxi' on a paper sign in the windscreen which is not there in long shot.
    • Crazy credits
      Opening credits prologue: A Redbrick University in Britain's new Elizabethan age: here are moulded the intellectual Drakes and Raleighs of tomorrow - fearless, independent - and state supported
    • Connections
      Version of Stastný Jim (1969)
    • Soundtracks
      Lucky Jim
      and the voice of Al Fernhead singing

      by Fred V. Bowers and Charles Horwitz

    User reviews26

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    4/10
    What have they done to my favorite novel?
    It's hard for me to be objective about this film, as it is adapted from my favorite novel--which I've read eight or nine times. Also, I waited so long to see it that it may have been inevitable that I would ultimately be disappointed. Ironically, I first heard about the film some years before I read the book, and it was only after I read the book that I made the connection between it and the description my brother had once given me. It would be about 20 years (no kidding!) before I finally saw the film myself. I've now seen it twice and mostly hated it both times.

    Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM was obligatory reading among history students when I was in grad school 30 years ago. The story about an unhappy history instructor in a crummy British provincial university expressed a lot of the angst that we felt as grad students, and it was funnier than heck as well. I loved the book then, and still love all these years later. Why, then, was the film such a disappointment? Mainly because the script muted much of the savageness of Amis's humor, and because it tacked on an idiotic chase scene at the end that has nothing whatever to do with the original story--or even with what goes before it in the film. (Even Ian Carmichael--who played Jim--hated that ending. He told me that the people making the film didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing--and it shows.)

    The producers also added a very unsatisfactory and irrelevant academic procession in them middle of the film--evidently for the sole purpose of making Carmichael look like a klutz by having him tripping over flowerpots and dropping things in the middle of the solemn affair.

    Nevertheless, the film does have its virtues, chief among them is excellent casting. Ian Carmichael was born to play Jim. Terry-Thomas was properly unctuous as Bertrand; Hugh Griffith certainly looked the part as Professor Neddy; Maureen Connell looked like I imagined the neurotic Margaret Peel; and Sharon Acker made a fine-looking Christine Callaghan.
    helpful•21
    4
    • arkent
    • Jun 3, 2001

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 17, 1957 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Volltreffer ins Glück
    • Filming locations
      • The Royal Masonic School, Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, UK(red-brick university where Jim works)
    • Production companies
      • Charter Film Productions
      • Boulting Brothers
      • British Lion Films
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 35 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White

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