What a Carve Up!

A good film that borrowed on the 'mousetrap' plot, & rather predictable. Acted out at a fast pace with great enthusiasm by all. Sid James was his usual brilliant self & Ken Connor too. Shirley Eaton played her part well. Dressed in a shift over a nylon slip for much of the film, strange how, when running from room to room, she'd continually hold her shift together in an attempt to stop it falling open thus giving us a glimpse of her slip underneath. Naively prudish of her, & ironic in that 2 yrs later she would appear in a Bond film wearing nothing but a coat of paint! At the time Ken Connor was one of the most sought after comedy film actors.

What a great movie, laugh, jump with terror (ish) a classic story with a obvious ending but still funny. Sid James and Kenneth Connor are a great comedy pair.See how young Shirley Eaton is WOW. Nice film in the middle of the carry on's.

I've finally managed to get my hands on a copy of this movie, after searching websites, video stores, and many a failed bid on eBay. And although it's a while since I last watched it, this movie is as good, if not better, than I remember.

Sid James gets the best lines, and delivers them with the consummate ease of a true professional. Kenneth Connor is a bit like his roles in the early Carry On's - but he was very good in them. Throw in a wonderfully sinister Donald Pleasance, the typically statuesque and beautiful Shirley Eaton, and a host of other suitable strange and quirky characters, all locked in a creepy mansion where the guests begin dropping like flies one by one. It all adds up to a marvelous romp - not so much scary as very creepy, very suspenseful, and very, very funny.

With leads like Sid James and Kenneth Connor No Place Like Homicide could easily be classified as a Carry On film. It really isn't though because Carry On films were strictly comedy and this one does have a bit of a story to it albeit just one to display the characters.

Connor and James are best friends and roommates, Connor a proofreader for a publishing company and James is a bookmaker which a profession of a slightly higher social standing in the UK than on this side of the pond. In any event in that plot gimmick from a Zillion films on both sides of the pond Connor is an heir and he and the other heirs have to spend a long night in a creepy mansion to inherit his late uncle's estate.

Of course a lot of the night is spent by Connor with the lovely Shirley Eaton who's another heir. Another heir is Dennis Price with a rakish Terry-Thomas mustache which makes me think Terry-Thomas had been slated to be in this. Michael Gough is a sinister butler and Donald Pleasance a sinister lawyer.

Nothing sinister about Connor who's wondering if the inheritance is really worth it and James who's wondering how he got into this mess. The usual kind of gags are present here though nothing terribly original.

British pop star Adam Faith shows up at the end without billing and unless you knew the British music scene of 1961 it's not a gag you will get.

The cast looks like the're having fun and I think you will to.

I caught the second half of this on TV over Christmas and had to track down a copy to see how it all began.

"...Carve Up" is an odd and fairly unique clash of different styles of film: the cheap, crass, misfiring humour of the Carry On films but set in an older, classic Ealing-style story, with a creepy atmosphere more like The Cat and The Canary, The Ghost of St. Michaels, or The Old Dark House, which the Carry-On films never even bothered to try to capture.

More's the pity, since this film feels almost like a signpost to a more interesting and better quality future for those movies, which never came about.

Kenneth Connor is a little grating, and Sid James plays Sid James. Shirley Eaton is pretty and refined but gives a stilted performance. The rest of the supporting cast are quality, though, and mark it out above average. It's much too patchy to be a great film, or even a really good one, but it is a likeable one.