In the Pocket

Ian Carmichael comes from a respectable family -- father James Hayter has never been caught, although he has been a pickpocket all his life. Carmichael, however, dreams of the big money, and one day, pursuing his trade of snatching unattended baggage, he achieves his dream, in a suitcase full of small notes. He displays them proudly to his family, but Hayter points out they all have the same serial numbers, obvious forgeries, and that's a specialist's job. Carmichael doesn't care. He's going to enjoy them, one pound at a time, so he's kicked out, despite the protests of his mother, Kathleen Harrison.

Carmichael falls for pub assistant Belinda Lee, who is much taken by the money he throws away; she has no problem spending the money, and Carmichael is too besotted to care. He also has Robert Helpmann, ringleader of the counterfeit gang on his trail.

It's a rare misfire by dependable director John Paddy Carstairs. Carmichael spends his time split evenly between being an idiot and jittering, and Miss Lee is stupid and predatory. I grew tired of the pair of them well before the movie's 85 minutes were up. With the only non-idiot, non-money obsessed character being Hayter, there wasn't much fun here. Apparently the producers agreed. It sat on a shelf for two years, until the Boultings made Carmichael a star with PRIVATE'S PROGRESS.

With George Coulouris, Renee Houston, Jill Ireland and Leslie Phillips.

Out of Pinewood Studios, The Big Money is directed by John Paddy Carstairs and written by John Baines. It stats Ian Carmichael, Belinda Lee, Robert Helpmann, James Hayter, Kathleen, Harrison and George Coulouris. Music is by Van Phillips and cinematography by Jack Cox. It is a VistaVision/Technicolor production.

When bumbling thief Willie Frith (Carmichael) steals a suitcase from a clergyman, he gets far more than he bargained for. Disowned by star and creators, and left on the shelf for years by the studio, it's safe to say that The Big Money at best is an awkward comedy. It's not bad exactly, in fact there's enough comedy here for those familiar with - and entertained by - British comedy slapstick pics of years gone by. The problem is a poor script that leaves a fine cast wasted.

The premise is a good one, eldest son from a family of crooks is incompetent and desperately wants to not only make the family proud, but also to make it big himself. The latter of which he sees as a way of attracting the opposite sex, notably the blonde siren behind the bar of The Red Dragon. Once he secures what he thinks is his life changing steal, he is thrust into mishap after mishap, all while some unsavoury types get on his trail. What transpires is a gently amusing comedy, but in truth that's not enough to make this a must - seek - out pic for those wishing to blow the blues away. Nice to see Royal Ascot feature though, that is if you like horse racing mind... 5/10

The Ealing comedies from England traveled well and built an enduring love overseas for British humor on screen, as did many an Ian Carmichael comedy into the '60s. But this big-deal production from Pinewood Studios laid an egg: a parochial sort of humor that missed the target. It's ironic that a film with this title (and script) aimed for the big money, with wide-screen filming in Technicolor! Ian's stammer and slapstick fall flat, the story is weak, and other than staring at beautiful leading lady Belinda Lee the movie is hard to watch. I did appreciate briefly seeing the great Jill Ireland in an early role.

I've just attended 'Ian Carmichael in Conversation' at the National Film Theatre in London (8 Dec 02). He was very wary of discussing this film, describing it as 'a mistake'. He said that he and Bryan Forbes had attempted to rewrite the script, but this was discarded. According to Mr Carmichael, the film was put away as unreleasable for five years, when another director thought that he could salvage footage of a race meeting at Ascot for insertion into a Norman Wisdom picture. He told Rank that with a bit of work, he could make it releasable - and there it is.

Norman Wisdom. His place is taken by Ian Carmichael. I can partly see why he might have been cast - the character here is, although a thief, a hapless and rather naive one - a frequent Ian Carmichael character who struggled to get the girl. But after a promising start, the hokum into which the film descends at the end is much more Normam Wisdom. He always played a hapless clumsy character who often pursued - and ended receiving the attention and love of an impossibly beautiful dream girl (here played by Belinda Lee.

The film would been better with Norman Wisdom providing not just haplessness but also his renowned comedy skills which always uplifted hokum.

Robert Helpman is rather good as the gang leader/fake clergyman Apart from this the colour is excellent (Technicolor) and it does provide a glimpse of 1956 hotel extreme luxury - at least the room decor and bathroom, as well as a vision of an up-market night club. An excellent cast of familiar character actors many of whom had starred in other films, it at least held the interest throughout and was agreeable to watch.