# Wrong Box, The (1966)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

    The Wrong Box (1966)

    Grade: 84

"The Wrong Box" is a British comedy with an excellent cast, and with colorful Victorian-era costumes and sets. The script was based on a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The film was directed by Bryan Forbes, who also produced.

The ensemble cast is led by John Mills and Ralph Richardson. They play elderly brothers who are the last survivors of a tontine, which is a trust fund in which each participant contributes an equal share. The tontine was set up by their parents when they were children. Over the years, it has grown into a considerable fortune.

Cantankerous Masterman (Mills) plans to win the tontine by murdering his brother Joseph (Richardson). This comes as a shock to Masterman's aged butler (Wilfrid Lawson) and his naive adopted son Michael (Michael Caine). Joseph is a clueless, hilariously insufferable windbag with three adopted children, Julia, John and Morris, now grown. Julia (Nanette Newman, wife of director Forbes) is poised and lovely but empty-headed. John (Dudley Moore) is a good-for-nothing skirtchaser. Morris (Peter Cook) is a relentless schemer who plots with John to win the tontine by producing a fake death certificate for Masterman. This certificate can be obtained from the eccentric Dr. Pratt (Peter Sellers, who alas has only a small part) whose office is overrun by cats.

Michael Caine also made "Alfie" that same year, 1966. His role in "Alfie" would receive Best Actor nominations from both the British and American Academies. "Alfie" was a cynical swinger, and completely the opposite character from his role in "The Wrong Box". In this film, he worships Julia from afar, who fortunately and unbeknowst to him worships him in return. Their Victorian romance, complete with unnatural, stilted conversation and a slow motion makeout scene, is played strictly (and successfully) for laughs.

Cook's character is stuffy and hypocritically moralistic, making his boldly larcenous schemes all the more comical. Cook and Moore were often paired in 1960s British comedies, beginning with the television show "Not Only... But Also". The most notorious of these films is "Bedazzled", in which Moore sells his soul to the devil, who is of course played by Cook.

"The Wrong Box" was nominated for several British Academy Awards. Julie Harris (no, not the actress) won for Best Costumes, while Richardson was nominated for Best Actor. Ray Simm was nominated for Best Art Direction, which assumedly did not include the television attennae visible atop the roofs of the Victorian-era homes.

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