Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

begob The heirs of two feuding elderly brothers who are the remaining beneficiaries of a Tontine lottery struggle to make sure they're on the side of the last man standing.This opens on a promising scene, where the schoolboys who stand to benefit from the lottery are lectured to by a Dickensian master, but then moves through a montage of untimely deaths that will tell you whether this movie is for you. I found the montage lame and underdeveloped, and nothing that followed improved the experience.Judging by other reviews it's clear comedy is a subjective experience, but it's hard not to see how poorly scripted this story is, how hard the actors struggle to give life to the material, and how many jokes were left on the table.The cast is wonderful, but I did feel sorry for them - especially Caine - having to deliver some really poor lines. Music is whimsical. Nothing else to report. Grrr.Overall: Disappointment verging on resentment.

mrwritela 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.

fedor8 The movie starts off quite well, rather quirky, with colourful and fun characters played occasionally brilliantly by an excellent cast (Caine, Cook, Newman, Dudley), and visually nice, obviously with a decent budget. However, the first half is the part of TWB that sets up the story. The problem arises when the story unfolds, in the second half. That's when the gags take a backseat to a multitude of plot-twists, which become so dominant that you almost forget you're watching a comedy.The writers of TWB would appear to have been so concerned with keeping the story clever (and it is, up to the point when it becomes a muddled mess) that somewhere along the way they must have forgotten to keep the story funny as well. There are numerous surprise twists, too many, in fact. The writers were so twist-happy, so bogged down in keeping this comedy interesting – as opposed to funny – that the twists spiral out of control toward the end, culminating in a not-so-grand finale which is just simplistic slapstick action farce, with people chasing each other and bickering in a buffoonish way.I have never understood this compulsion, this annoying tradition to nearly always end a comedy with a boring action sequence. What the hell is that all about? Hence why so many comedies start off well, sometimes work well in the middle also, but then degenerate into daft and dull chases and shoot-outs whose only purpose is to serve the (more-or-less irrelevant) story. The problem is, who CARES about the story's resolution. A comedy needs to be funny, not resolved. If you can do both, then all the power to you, but get your priorities straight.To watch Caine in an excellent comedy, as opposed to a solid one like TWB, you can do much worse than try "Without A Clue", "Blame It On Rio", or "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels". As for Cook and Dudley, watch "Bedazzled", which came out just a year after TWB; it's superior to it and one of the best comedies of the 60s.There are some original ideas, such as the inheritors in a testament not trying to kill their uncle/father/whoever but dedicating their lives to prolonging their life, as is the case with "poor little orphans" Cook and Moore taking care of Richardson's health. (This is not a spoiler, as this is established very early on.)

bkoganbing At some point the brothers Finsbury must have had some second thoughts about entering that lottery for life which is what the Tontine is. And it's true as Ralph Richardson reminds us in the film that the concept is named after the 17th century Italian banker who came up with the idea.Essentially a Tontine is a life's lottery, several folks put up an initial investment and we of course presume it is in the hands of some really conservative bankers who don't go into something wildly speculative. If that's done the winner of the Tontine is the last survivor among the initial investors.Wouldn't you know it, but the last survivors as it turns out are a pair of feuding brothers, the Finsburys played by John Mills and Ralph Richardson. These two guys don't speak on general principles to start with, but with over 100,000 in pound sterling up for grabs, these two old coots are at each other and if not them, their respective heirs.Worst of course is Dudley Moore and Peter Cook who are Richardson's nephews, presumably on his wife's side. They hear Mills is dying and Mills is one of those characters who's been dying for a couple of generations and buries everybody around him. But in order for them to inherit Mills has to go first and then Richardson and it's all their'sThus the black comedy begins with the two schemers trying to work out a pair of deaths in the correct order. It may be black comedy, but it's also Murphy's law comedy, but Murphy never dealt with some of the situations thrown at the cast.Best in the film in my opinion is Ralph Richardson. He's one of those pedantic scholarly types who has learned a lot on just about everything and who doesn't hesitate to show off his knowledge and bore everyone around him to tears. It's no wonder Mills rises from what is thought to be his deathbed to strangle him, just to shut him up. It's the best scene in the film, marvelously played by two of the best from the British cinema. So if you think your family has problems just think about the Finsbury brothers and what they and their relations go through in The Wrong Box.