Dry Rot

Three not-too-bright bookies -- Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix and Sidney James -- decide to fix a race. They get a terrible horse and set it up to be a long shot, to bring in the punters, and lose. While waiting for the race, they set up in a house run by Michael Sheply and Joan Haythorne. The house is falling apart with dry rot, and supplied with many secret passages, as well as young lovers, a maid-of-all-work played by Joan Sims, and French farceur Christian Duvaleix, with frequent visits by policewoman Peggy Mount.

Director Maurice Elvey is completely out of his depth. I regret to say this, because I am fond of a lot of his work, but there are too many experts in farce pulling in all sorts of directions -- not to mention the horse, who pops up at the most inconvenient moment. For farce to work well, it has to run like clockwork, with a plot that seems to run out of control, until the finale, when everything comes together. That doesn't happen here. Instead, there are dangling plots -- we abandon the young lovers at the racetrack -- for a chaotic chase by the police of the three bookies atop a ladder on a firewagon driven by Duvaleix. The story falls apart in the need for yet one more laugh. It's a pity for such a talented cast and crew.

Laboured farce in which three hapless bookies attempt to fix a race in order to make a financial killing. Sid James is as dependable as always, but Ronald Shiner comes across as a second-string Stanley Holloway and Brian Rex is simply annoying (although he does manage to keep his trousers on most of the time). Joan Sims at least manages to wring a few laughs from the thin material as a none-too-bright housemaid.

I never intentionally went to see a Brian Fix film in the cinema,however I did go to see Ronnie Shiners films.For some reason I found him funny.In this film neither is funny.Did James played a bookie,now there's typecasting.Lee Paterson played a romantic lead and Michael Shelley played the sort of part he had played for all his career.Not so much dry as dull rot.

My sense of humour must have changed quite a radically since I was 9 years old when I first saw this farce on stage at the Whitehall theater with my late parents with (if I can remember back 56 years ago), Leo Franklin in the part of Sid James.Yes, Brian Rix was in the cast and yes he lost his trousers in good old farce style.In fact I cannot think of Brian Rix in another dramatic role when il ne perdu pas ses pantalons!So After 55 years I bought this film out of curiosity to find out whether I would find any humour still existing in 2011.The answer was only mild echoes from my youth.We had very primitive humour before they were sharpened on Monty Python, Blackadder, satire and modern fearless stand up comedy from the likes of Ben Elton, Bernard Manning et all.

What I did find of interest was seeing Lee Paterson whose most famous role was as Group Capt.Turner, the Canadian fighter pilot from the film "Reach for the Sky" (1956) starring Kenneth More and Heather Sears as "Susan" in "Room at the Top" starring Lawrence Harvey.Sid was Sid James and Ronald Shiner played his usual ignorant cockney role.

Obviously the film has outside location scenes not possible in a theatre production especially shots of Sandown Park racecourse.Had I written this review when I was 9, I would have scored it 8/10 but now alas, I rated it only 5/10 as the humour seemed very primitive to my aging eyes.

The biggest problem with this movie is the run time. It's almost two hours long and the 'Three Stooges' impersonations get tiresome after the halfway mark.

But what lifts this up is the rather excellent script. The screenplay has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments but it's unfortunately buried beneath the overplayed performance of the farcical slapstick scenes.

The casting of the characters also lifts this fim... especially Sid James who is a joy to watch on film regardless of what he does or who he is... and here, he is 'Flash Harry!'

Despite a long career, Ronald Shiner is too old to play his part here... and Brian Rix was just starting out on his journey to stardom. However, the satellite characters keep this flick moving along. Brilliant Michael Shepley and Joan Haythorne as Colonel Wagstaff and his detached wife, Joan Sims as Beth the cleaner and there are others.

But like I say, it's just too long and even a 9-year-old boy eventually has to say that enough is enough when it comes to the relentless parade of theatrical slapstick.