Le secret de mon succès

A bumbling bobby, with the aid of his mother, rises through the P.D., becomes the leader of a Latin-American revolution and inherits a fortune. 1st Stella murders her husband and buries him in the basement, then Honor raises St.Bernard size spiders and commits her spouse to a mental institution and Shirley cons the hero into the revolution. All without the knowing sense of the hero, aided and abetted by his mother plottings.

What a wacko plot! The should have made this with John Cleese as the star and it would have been a bigger hoot.

This film deserves more recognition. It has several funny moments and is definitely worth a watch.

Arthur Tate (James Booth) inherits 15 million pounds and reveals the secret of his success. He recounts his rise starting as a constable in a small town. Violet Lawson (Stella Stevens) comes looking for her missing husband. With the help of his mother, it leads to more success over and over again.

As a comedy, there is nothing that funny. It's a little quirky in spots but there are no laughs to be had. As a horror, the giant spiders are obviously walking around in miniature recreations. It's old timey special effects. It's cheesy without being scary and it comes out of nowhere. It's very weird and it's short-lived. This is an odd film. It's a jarring mixture. These are almost individual vignettes. They barely hold together. Separately, they are mostly inferior comedies and only fit for British black comedy fans. Arthur Tate is sort of like an Insp. Clouseau type character where he fails upwards. Only he does it in an unfunny way.

I've just viewed the gorgeous print recently shown on TCM, and I can assure the previous reviewer, and anyone else who has seen a pan and scan copy, that the film is no better in pristine condition than it is otherwise. James Booth is deadly dull as the lead, Lionel Jeffries is obviously trying to channel the spirit of one of Peter Sellers multi-role performances, and the story is ineptly developed. The giant spiders are vaguely amusing but gosh, I went to see Eight Legged Freaks the day before I watched this, and the spiders in that film were a lot more fun.

This picture deals with three different women and one especially who has a husband who has always loved to study spiders and ants and this couple live in this very huge home with so many rooms you could really get lost inside and the basement is the same way. This woman kills a man and she calls in Scotland Yard and they investigate the crime and then one of the inspectors finds out that there are large spiders roaming around and actually running after them. These spiders are big as large dogs and their lives are threatened, the woman convinces the inspectors that her husband committed this murder and he is taken away to prison. The fact is that this woman actually kept these spiders and helped them grow into huge insects. Remember, there are really two more women in this picture who have another strange story to tell.