The Wrong Box DVD

After what seems an endless wait, Bryan Forbes' wonderfully, if underrated, film, "The Wrong Box" finally is making it to DVD in August,2007.
Woefully unrecogni... Read on

After what seems an endless wait, Bryan Forbes' wonderfully, if underrated, film, "The Wrong Box" finally is making it to DVD in August,2007.
Woefully unrecognised as the classic comedy it is, the screenplay alone would guarantee it a place in any film archivist favourite comedies. Superbly photographed in glorious colour (the scene where the Victorian maiden Nanette Newman looks swoonishly at Michael Caine's upper arm and its golden hairs is in itself a wonder to behold).
"The Wrong Box" also draws out some of their greatest comic performances on screen from John Mills, Ralph Richardson and and Tony Hancock. And there is a truly unforgettable cameo by Peter Sellers, as a downatheel solicitor who blots his legal work with a cat kept in his desk's drawer.
The film's only drawback, and it is a very minor one is an over-indulgent patch with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, which is poorly written and even more poorly played by a normally excellent team.
One highlight, and there are many in this British gem, is the coach trip with a wonderfully droning Ralph Richardson and a driver driven to dementia by bordom.
Surely this is the best film Forbes ever made and that includes an oeuvre that most other film-makers can only dream of. A film to revel in! (Tom Darragh) Hide

Directors like Richard Lester or Blake Edwards would have played this as flat-out farce. Forbes deliberately slows things down as the lovers Caine and Newman swoon ove... Read on

Directors like Richard Lester or Blake Edwards would have played this as flat-out farce. Forbes deliberately slows things down as the lovers Caine and Newman swoon over glimpses of each other's ankles. That much of it works, but he has trouble finding business for his all-star cast to attend to. Sellers and his cats are fun, the first time; a second scene adds nothing new. Dud and Pete do the same thing over and over. Hancock is brought on late to expostulate a bit of plot but essentially has no role at all. Even allowing for the slow-motion swooning, this could have done with quite a lot of pruning. The high points are Richardson's serene lack of self-awareness, Caine's timid innocence, and Lawson's pickled butler; some blithely surreal shots (a pair of crashed trains forming an inverted V in the background), and the memorable intertitle 'ALONE WITH HER AT LAST IN A ROOM FULL OF EGGS'. Low point: even with a DVD transfer they still haven't photoshopped out the notorious TV aerials. Hide