One of my all time favorites.

Just perfect...

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Laughs out loud throughout the script, a great cast and beautifully shot. I was intrigued that with so many fantastic comedic actors I had never heard of this film. There's really nothing novel about the plot or the characterizations but this movie just clicks and goes right to the top of the list for the madcap/caper/farce genre. Peacock steals every scene he's in. Really enjoyable film.

Firstly let me say that I'm a big "Pete & Dud" fan. The right film I like. I have nothing against the right film. The trouble is... This is a hum-drum affair. Yes, it's worth watching but only to see a bit of Pete & Dud if you know and love them. If you want a funny, flowing film with a good plot and lots of laughs then forget it. This film, like Mr. Spigot, hops about on one leg and doesn't entirely stand up for itself. It's farce without the funny "mistaken identity" bedroom scenes and interaction between anyone other than Pete, Dud, and a drunkard servant (well played that man), ooh... and one dippy woman. On the plus side if you like coffin-based farce (a sort of maxi-episode of 'Allo, 'Allo - the one with the coffin), then this is for you. They did marginally better with their "Hound of the Baskervilles". Dave Allen's coffin sketch was better than this. The overall impression is "in through one ear and out the other". Worth watching from a "Pete & Dud" history POV but not much else going for it as a film in its own right.

This movie has a very personal significance for me.I saw it on a double date in my senior year in high school. We all thought it screamingly funny, and so it is. (Though this was in Laguna Beach, California.) It is a crying shame that so few people have even heard about it.Not that it's perfect. Though Larry Gelbart (before his later "Tootsie" career) and then-partner Bert Shevelove had written the also hysterical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the movie version of which had also floored us, "The Wrong Box" kind of poops out at the end, despite a few good lines ("This is Julia Finsbury, shortly to become...Julia Finsbury"). And John Barry, whose work on the Bond films is non-pareil--despite the beautiful, but in retrospect inappropriate main theme--supplied music generally too genteel--especially for the Pink-Pantherish slapstick at the end.But in high school, my first drama monologues were those of Peter Cook (who back then I slightly resembled) from "Beyond the Fringe." (Which I can still do, word for word, to this day. I didn't realize what a prick he was until I saw the BBC TV movie, "Not Only But Also.") Nevertheless, and regardless of their personal relationship, Pete and Dud were brilliant comedians. And "The Wrong Box" shows them off to the best of their comedic abilities. (As does the original "Bedazzled," of a few years later.)PLUS, you've got Peter Sellers doing one of his most bizarre eccentrics, Ralph Richardson as probably the funniest bore ever to appear in a movie, Tony Hancock at his apoplectic best, and gorgeous photography (if you can ignore the TV antennae).In all, a genuine unsung British comedic masterpiece that deserves much wider recognition.

Funny and often laugh out loud hilarious story of two brothers (John Mills and Ralph Richardson), one of whom must outlive the other in order to win a Tontine started at their boys school and going to the final survivor of the class. What transpires is "The Wrong Box," a 1966 film directed by Bryan Forbes and also starring Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Wilfred Lawson, Nanette Newman (Mrs. Forbes) and Peter Sellers.The first ten minutes or so of the movie is hilarious, as it shows the demise of the other students over the years. Regarding the surviving Finsbury brothers, one side of has Caine and his grandfather Mills, who is desperate to win, so he summons his brother to his "deathbed" in order to kill him, in one of the funniest scenes in the movie. On the other side, Cook and Moore are Richardson's nephews, who have devoted themselves to keeping their uncle alive. They needn't have bothered because he can't be killed anyway. He walks away from a train crash, but there's a mix-up, and he's believed dead. The nephews are desperate to cover this up until Mills dies. When they go to bury what they think is his body, Cook makes Moore do it rather than put his hands in the dirt, insisting "petal-soft hands are the mark of a great ornithologist." Both Richardson, as the fact-spewing brother, and Mills, as the crazy old coot with murder in his heart, are excellent, as is the rest of the cast. Michael Caine is young and handsome here. Peter Sellers as a shady, cat-loving doctor is a riot. Wilfred Lawson, who plays Mills' butler, nearly steals the film as the elderly servant so old he practically has rigor mortis. One of the best moments is when Michael Caine sends him to the door telling him to go slowly - it already takes him ten minutes to get there, and Lawson starts to go to the door and mumbles to himself, "I'll slow it down." Too much. The pretty ingénue, Newman, had been married to director Forbes for ten years before the making of this film. She's still married to him.Lots of fun, with a crazy finale befitting the film.