Risate in paradiso

When the film begins, an elderly man is dying...and he commits a prank on his way out of this world. But it's not his final prank...that comes in his will. When it's read to his four relatives, they're each told they'd receive 50,000 pounds...provided each do something odd and specifically tailored to them. His haughty sister is told that in order to collect, she must become a domestic and serve as one for a year. His cousin, the writer, must act out his dime novels...and get himself incarcerated for 28 days. His meek relative must hold up a bank with a fake gun...and his playboy cousin must marry the first woman with which he strikes up a conversation! And, all of these must be completed without telling anyone why they are doing it!

What made this one especially good is that, for the most part, the folks all learned a positive lesson from all this and there were also a few laughs along the way. Worth seeing and clever.

Alastair Sim would make a perfect undertaker. With those Bassett-hound eyes and that mournful hand-wringing manner, he's made to preside over the Slumber Room and ease you into the priciest model. So, it never fails to surprise me that he's also a first-rate comedic actor, maybe even the last word in droll comedy. And he pulls off the humor so slyly, with just a minor change of expression. What a wonderfully artistic contrast he is to today's rub- your-nose-in-it brand of comedy.

This is not his best vehicle, but the movie does have a clever premise and a couple of good set-ups—the shoplifting sequence, and any scene with Joyce Grenfell. The sketches, however, are more amusing than hilarious, and the humor never really peaks out in a climactic way. It's also perhaps one of the sweetest comedies on record, insisting that the key to happiness is pairing up with another, even in the case of those two cranky old people. That's the wisdom behind the will's requirement— old man Russell makes each beneficiary experience what is most missing from his or her life, and in the process, become a better and happier person.

Note the shot taken early on at America's brand of hard-boiled detective fiction, probably then making inroads into popular British fiction. So, by combining America's street- tough style with traditional British prose, writer Russell (Sim) produces something amusingly ridiculous, like "Petal arched her alabaster arm above her patrician brow in a moment of precise exasperation before he smacked her in the kisser." Anyway, I thought those passages were both funny and cleverly offbeat. All in all, this little comedy may be no knee-slapper, but it is rather sweetly memorable.

I first saw this as a youngster and liked it, but over the years it's really grown on me until now I regard it as a minor classic. The main characters were all played excellently, with many lesser characters also played memorably.

Practical joker Hugh Griffiths dies and leaves GBP 50,000 to each of his four living relatives if they complete various silly but onerous tasks within one month of his death. Pulp writer Alistair Sim, snobby Fay Compton, womaniser Guy Middleton and timid George Cole are all faced with problems that are against their natures, and their attempts to succeed ultimately result in a worthy moral and laughter on Earth. Cole's "juvenile" sections used to irritate me when younger but there's plenty else to savour, especially the incomparable Sim as a determined shoplifter, Compton as a harassed skivvy and Middleton as a hornswoggled suitor. As icing on the cake there's also fluffy Joyce Grenfell, scathing John Laurie, suave Anthony Steel, jolly Ernest Thesiger, and many other old friends – even the forever bald Noel Howlett and a young Audrey Hepburn. The direction and production values were top notch too; the sets were so beautifully wooden, the acting certainly was not.

It's flimsy yet logical, life-affirming and recommended – stay with it to the end to have the last laugh.

This is a most excellent example of the comic talents of Alistair Sim. His bungling attempts to get himself arrested had me in stitches. Particularly trying to get the store detective, or indeed anyone, to notice he was trying his hand at shoplifting. And of course finding a crime that would only get him the 30 days in jail as stipulated in the will.

As someone else has mentioned he did have all the best lines, but the remainder of the cast did a great job, the mild mannered clerk who had to rob the bank where he worked, the overbearing snob who had to be a maid, the womaniser who had to marry the first woman he spoke to, all made for the usual mix of farce and comedy.

It was also notable for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn as the cigarette girl.

Any film with Alastair Sim is worth watching, but this must rank as one of his best. Here he really displays his comic genius; his scenes can rightly be described as a masterclass in the art of comedy. Not before time, this has now become available on DVD, although, as yet, only part of a box set. Since Alastair Sim appears in the other films offered, this is not a great drawback. The other main characters in the film are also very good, particularly Fay Compton, and the supporting roles are filled well, with the always reliable Joyce Grenfell giving great satisfaction. The plot, too, is a cut above the usual, and it all adds up to a very satisfying experience, and one which I have watched many times, and hopefully will watch many more times.