Customer Reviews

La Caja de las Sorpresas (The Wrong Box) [Region 2]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To anyone familiar with The Wrong Box, this hilarious British classic needs no booster. To anyone not familiar with the film, its cast is stellar and its script divine. The result is one of the funniest purely comedic works in the history of film. Sadly, The Wrong Box has not yet been released on DVD even in the UK, much less here in the USA in a Region 1 edition. This Region 2 PAL release from Spain is nice - the subtitles are removable -- but it presents the film in the "standard" 4:3 aspect ratio, not the 1.66:1 widescreen aspect in which it was shot. Still, this is a comparatively minor flaw when compared to the alternative -- having no DVD copy of The Wrong Box available at all. Here's hoping this honored classic will be released in the proper widescreen format both in England and also as a Region 1 edition in the USA and Canada -- and soon.

The Wrong Box (Bryan Forbes, 1966)

Robert Louis Stevenson, in the main, wrote adventure stories, and thus most film adaptations of his work have been of his adventure stories. But the wonderful director Bryan Forbes (Séance on a Wet Afternoon) decided to try his hand at a Stevenson comedy, and The Wrong Box is the result. Highbrow high-jinks, lighthearted mystery, and some of the best comic actors of the time make this one an overlooked gem.

The movie starts with one class in an exclusive boys' school, each backed by his parents, entering into a tontine (a kind of lottery); each parent stakes an amount of money, the sum of which is put into trust for the children, and the last surviving member of the class gets the prize. Fast-forward eighty years, though a montage where we see the other members of the class dying in amusing ways, and only two of them are left. Both are on their deathbeds, and thus their heirs are scrambling to keep the scions alive until the other one dies. All well and good, but eventually, a few of them come up with the idea: what happens if you just get rid of the other one first? And thus the high-jinks begin.

It's silly, it's needlessly labyrinthine, and man, is it amusing. All of that is thanks to the incredible level of comic talent to be found in this movie, which includes Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (the premier comedy team of the time), Michael Caine, Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Nicholas Parsons, John Mills, Nanette Newman, Gerald Sim, Andrea Allan, and the incomparable Peter Sellers in what may be the funniest role of his career. Sure, thirty minutes into this you'll be completely lost, but who cares? You'll be too busy laughing to notice. *** ½

THE WRONG BOX is a cult favorite in my family, to the point where lines from it may be quoted out of context without explanation. ("Oh would you sir?") Paid $60 for it in 1984 when it came out on VHS. Been waiting years for a proper DVD release. I've bought bootleg DVD's copied from the laserdisc version (not widescreen) and the PAL version (also not widescreen). Now, at long last, we fans have a legitimate US DVD. And it's widescreen! Picture and sound are both top quality.
I'll leave it to others to comment on the film itself--when you're a member of the WRONG BOX cult, the film needs no justification. We watch for the little moments now. Peter Cook almost unable to keep from laughing during his scenes with Peter Sellers. Sellers holding up a graduated cylinder when Cook, prompting Dr. Pratt to write his name, says "P". The headlines on the newspaper about the Bournmouth Strangler. The period details outside the Crescent. It's all there, and all newly appreciable on the home screen.

I saw this in Hollywood when it first came out, in 1966. I remember how the audience left the theater, walking like spavined hunchbacks. Nobody could stand up straight, because we had all been laughing too hard.

When VCDs and DVDs became available, I thought I might be able to buy a copy, but unfortunately, probably under the influence of another very funny film, After the Fox, I misremembered the name as After the Box. Finally I was inspired to google box / tontine / movie, and finally came up with the right name.

Okay, so I'm telling you that this movie is so funny that it stayed in my mind for forty years, along with Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and a couple Marx Brothers classics. To say I recommend it highly is like saying Chomolongma is a considerable lump.
(from the other review, I think I should try to find Bedazzled.)

I also bought the original book - by Robert Lewis Stevenson no less -- and read it last week. The book and the movie are very different, but each shines. If you want a good laugh, start here.

Sony owns this. Why haven't they released this in region 1?

You won't find a better team of actors for making riotous British comedy than these folks. It's a Murphy's Law comedy; everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. The families of the two surviving members of a tontine have to keep them alive (or at least seem to be alive) to inherit the survivor's fund. Great characters (wait until you see the doctor!) make every situation funnier.

For those of you who have not seen this movie, it is a deeply twisted comedy with an all-star cast. Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Michael Caine, and a marvelous bit part by Peter Sellers with, in my opinion, one of the best ad-libs on film.

This transfer is quite good, with few visual imperfections and good sound. Well worth the purchase!

While not thinking this film is quite as good as Brian, I do enjoy it immensely. So much so that it pushed me into buying the all region DVD player I now have. (Though nothing much of value was added to the release...which is a bit disappointing.)

Watching the DVD after only having had the VHS version for the last 15 years, I am astounded at how much must have been chopped. This is a big film, with a wide screen and action all over. And the transfer on the UK DVD looks great!

It's just the content. Another of those mid-Sixties films that should have been better than it was, there are laughs aplenty here but nothing to match the incredible heights Pete and Dud achieved in Bedazzled. And while Ralph Richardson and Peter Sellars are amazing, creating two of the most memorable characters ever seen on film, the overall pleasure is 4 stars at best. So, go find the UK release, get an all region DVD player, and enjoy this fine film. Just don't expect something eternal.

I was very pleased to find this DVD finally available since I had been searching for it. It is one of those British humor romps that are so entertaining. It features a cast of excellent actors having a really good time.

It is a pleasure to watch a British comedy acted out in a "leisurely" pace. The "courtship" between the main actor and actress is a bit "out-moded" in modern sense, but it is fun to look back in time!

I'd seen this movie years ago and remembered loving it. I'm glad it's finally available on dvd. The movie looks crisp and the sound is good. This '60s send-up of late Victorian life casts Michael Caine as a timid prim young man (very much against the type Caine generally played in movies). The comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore provide great humor, and Peter Sellers as a "fallen" doctor is wonderful. The "plot" revolves around a million-pound trust to be inherited, mistaken deliveries, and a mystery corpse. Silly and funny, and it's a treat to see Cook and Moore. There's a lot of charm as well in the production values--late Victorian England is done to a turn.