The Wrong Box (1966)
Bryan
Forbes' large-screen colour venture into the realms of black
comedy is a story set in the Victorian era about two rival
brothers (Ralph Richardson and John Mills) and their beneficiaries
fighting it out to the death for the sake of the lottery fortune
dangled between them.
Helping the irascible, poverty stricken Masterman Finsbury
(Mills) is his shy grandson Michael (Michael Caine).
Opposing them
are his eccentric younger brother, Joseph Finsbury (Richardson),
and a pair of greedy nephews, Morris (Peter Cook) and John (Dudley
Moore).
Julia (Nanette Newman) is in love with Michael, and unbeknown
to her, he also adores her.
Morris and John believe that Joseph is
killed in a train crash and not wanting the authorities to find
out, they ship home what they believe to be their uncle’s body
– and hence Michael finds a coffin containing a perfect stranger
on his doorstep.
Before you can shout ‘fratricide’, the landscape is
cluttered with corpses, bumbling detectives (Tony Hancock) and a
mad surgeon (Peter Sellers).
Based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, the film is rife
with plots, counter-plots, mix-ups and a wild chase with lots of
character cameos, gags, jokes and slapstick sequences amusingly
tied together.
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