Dry Rot

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.

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.

Another attempt to translate a popular stage farce to the screen runs into a familiar problem. Getting the long central section in the boarding house to work, particularly the business with the horse behind the sliding panel, would require much more adroit direction and editing. The comedy in this part is not allowed to flow, dissipating amusing performances from veterans Joan Haythorne and Michael Shepley. Brian Rix is not seen at his best and his one-note, relentlessly gormless character soon becomes tiresome, though Sid James can't fail to raise a few chuckles. But it's quite a likeable British comedy of its day and the final slapstick chase sequence with Peggy Mount at her most terrifying ends the proceedings with a bang.

The storyline revolves around a highly dubious betting scam in horse racing. Enter, Ronald Shiner, playing a bookie, who I was never keen on, because in this film, like so many of his film roles, he is constantly shouting and grinning. His presence on the screen simply grates - and as for Brian Rix, here is once again playing the gormless 'village idiot' character, which is enough to send audiences running to the exit door, long before the film has finished. 'Dry Rot' was a 'popular' farce that ran for many years at the Whitehall Theatre in London, however, it's transfer to the big screen, failed miserably as the dialogue was excruciatingly bad and the slapstick antics were simply cringeworthy. Sid James gives some mild relief in his usual role as a 'dodgy' spiv type character, but even his comedic acting skills can't save this film from being a total dud. 'Dry Rot,' even when it was released in 1961, looked dated, and sadly with the passage of time, it can only be considered a tedious museum piece.

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.