Vice Versa

In the tradition of films like TURNABOUT and FREAKY Friday, VICE VERSA attaches the theme to a couple of males this time, in a British comedy written and directed by Peter Ustinov that tries too hard to be clever, but succeeds, instead, in being exceedingly foolish.

ANTHONY NEWLEY is a Victorian schoolboy who trades places with his stuffy British father by wishing on a magic stone from India. Newley brings his father's knowledge and stuffiness to the school that he returns to, much to the bewilderment of his classmates and professors. The father, ROGER LIVESEY, adopts childish preferences rather than smoking his favored cigars and confounds his household servants.

You have to be a fan of overly broad, non-subtle British humor to fully enjoy this comedy. Most of it is beyond silly, however delightful the performances are. Especially absurd is the confrontation of battle swords in a duel over a young woman, played for zany humor but somehow missing the mark.

None of it can be taken seriously, so your enjoyment of the story will depend entirely on whether or not you favor this sort of humor. Newley does a decent enough job as the young boy and Livesey seems to be enjoying himself in a comic role, looking and sounding an awful lot like Nigel Bruce behind his scruffy mustache.

Anyone with a sharp eye will notice that so many of the story ingredients are used in FREAKY Friday, but American style.

Too overdone for my taste.

Very entertaining - in a silly kind of way. Anthony Newley knocks most other child actors into a cocked hat, and Roger Livesey is very endearing: neither overplay their parts as so often happens in this kind of yarn. If you appreciate light-hearted vintage English comedy you will surely enjoy this one - I thought it superb - but don't watch it if your movies need to be in colour or have relevance to something as it's just a bit of pure fun. This said it holds the attention throughout due to it's fast-paced antics and great characterisations. Hope it's out on DVD somewhere as would love to own a copy.

Roger Livesey ("Paul") is the wealthy but rather indifferent dad to "Dick" (Anthony Newley). The youngster hates the idea of going back to his boarding school, but his skinflint of a father is having none of it. When "Dick" tries a bit of emotional blackmail, his dad - clutching a mysterious stone from a temple in faraway India finds himself making a wish and now has the mental age of his son. His son, seeing an opportunity for some mischief takes hold of the stone and is soon his father in the body of a boy! What now ensue are an entertaining series of escapades as the youngster goes back to a school under the austere tutelage of "Dr. Grimstone" (James Robertson Justice) and the father tries to fit into a modern adult life of industry and duels - when all he really wants is lemonade and a kiss from "Dulcie" (Petula Clark). Livesey is on good form here as is the increasingly exasperated JRJ and Kay Walsh as the girlfriend of the father who finds herself continually perplexed by these unexplained developments. It is directed by Peter Ustinov and that's quite obvious after a while - it has a haphazard quirkiness and whimsy to it that provides for a slightly grander, more sophisticated, humour as the story moves along. It takes a swipe at the pompous and the shallow, and though it is probably twenty minutes too long, is still quite an enjoyable watch with some amiable characterisations and fun dialogue.

VICE VERSA (1948), a sort of proto-FREAKY_FRIDAY story about a father and son switching places, is a delightful British comedy in the vein of, perhaps, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), brought to you by theatrical Renaissance man Peter Ustinov, who wrote, produced, and directed the film (but does not appear on-screen).

The action is set around the turn of the century and involves a magic wish-granting stone, stolen from a temple in India. When young Dick Bultitude protests being sent back to his boarding school, his blustery father (holding the stone) makes an off-hand remark about wishing to be young again. Soon the elder Bultitude finds himself in the body of a schoolboy, the spitting image of his own son. And Dick grabs the stone and wishes to be grown-up, filling out the body of his middle-aged father. Understandably, everyone mistakes Dick for his father and vice versa, sending the father off to school in the boy's place and leaving the son to manage the father's affairs at home.

The dual performances by the two main actors are superb, with an adolescent Anthony Newley (later to star in DOCTOR DOLITTLE and write songs for WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY in a varied entertainment career) doing a spot-on imitation of Roger Livesey's Bultitude Sr. and Livesey in turn acting believably childish as a boy in a man's body. Each actor gives such a distinctly different performance after the body swap that it's no trouble believing that Newley IS a fifty-year-old man or that Livesey IS a boy of fourteen, despite the absurdity of it all. And from there the hijinks are a lot of fun.

Ustinov's film has a wonderful flair for comedy, from the charmingly old-timey title slides to the bookending narrative device that breaks the fourth wall, inviting the audience into the Bultitude home. The literate script uses stuffy British propriety to humorous effect, particularly through the characters of Paul Bultitude (the father) and James Robertson Justice's strict headmaster Dr. Grimstone. There's also a madcap farce of a duel and a subsequent courtroom scene that's a riot.

There's no film quite like Peter Ustinov's Vice Versa, the clever playfulness is constant and yet is never so overpowering as to bore you. I hadn't seen it for nearly 10 years before tonight but remembered most of the excruciatingly erudite and formal dialogue enunciated by the melodramatic caricatures of the ridiculously socially atrophied Victorians perfectly.

Father Roger Livesey and son Anthony Newley (in his 2nd film) make unfortunate hasty wishes holding the stolen mystical Garuda Stone changing their bodies around. The upshot being the young father is sent back to boarding school to astound the natives by the middle aged son who begins to astound his butler and doctor by his sudden propensity for sherbet and ginger ale. Their separate adventures form the film, delightfully and uniquely presented and acted. Favourite bits: The courtroom bursting into The Merry Wives Of Windsor and the swift justice meted out to the duelists because the judge had to get off to Rickmansworth; Reaching for the note on the floor of the school chapel but being startlingly and loudly spotted by headmaster James Robertson Justice - my favourite film of his.

I think it might possibly help to be British or have a working knowledge of the Boys Own Paper and Victorian penny dreadfuls to fully appreciate this, or maybe just keep in mind that this is a fond and gently relentless satire on the genre. In a unique whimsical class of its own, I've always loved this Vice Versa Version but it probably won't appeal to the more serious who prefer sober message to witty inconsequentiality - and of course masochists who would hate all 97 keenly watched minutes.