What a Carve Up! (AKA No Place Like Homicide)

Dir: Pat Jackson

1961

****

Pat Jackson’s murder mystery spoof is a brilliant send up of the genre with a classically British sense of humour. Made in 1961, I find the era to be something of a golden one, with the Carry On films on the rise, and films like School ForScoundrels, Two-Way Stretch, Make Mine Mink and the Pink Panther series taking over the throne from the Ealing Comedies that had come to an end in 1958. Loosely based on The Ghoul by Frank King, it’s perhaps a little closer to the book than the 1933 Boris Karloff adaptation but with plenty of British humour. The fact that the film is led by the brilliant Sid James and Kenneth Connor probably tells you everything you need to know and what to expect from the film. What a Carve Up! is a very British title but I’ve always preferred the title used for the American release: No Place Like Homicide. Connor plays Ernest, a proof-reader, who has become rather jumpy of late due to the amount of murder mystery horrors he’s had to read. Being of a nervous disposition anyway, a proud but scared-stiff Ernest won’t admit his fright to his straight-talking flat-mate Syd (played by Sid James) who pulls his leg at every given opportunity. The film is brilliant for the beginning, thanks to the chemistry between the two comics who were good friends in real life. When Everett Sloane (the brilliant Donald Pleasence), a solicitor representing Ernest’s estranged uncle, appears at the door requesting their presence at said uncle’s will reading, Ernest is both terrified and excited. Syd, never one to miss an opportunity, agrees to accompany him on the journey to Blackshore Towers, a feared house in the middle of the Yorkshire moors (a clichéd location for horror and thriller at the time). All of the haunted house clichés are sent up and made fun of but much of the humour is in the script rather than physical. Ernest’s estranged family are a mixed bunch of character, including; Guy Broughton (Dennis Price), an ex-officer, heavy drinker and son of the deceased; Guy's grasping sister Janet (Valerie Taylor); their senile aunt Emily (or is she?) played by Esma Cannon; their father Dr Edward Broughton (George Woodbridge); Ernest's cousin Malcolm Broughton, a piano player who claims everyone is "quite mad"; the late uncle’s nurse Linda Dixon (played by Shirley Eaton – three years before she would be painted head to foot in gold paint in Goldfinger) and Fisk, the house Butler, who is played by Michael Gough who would go on to play a much more famous Butler in the 90’s Batman films. The characters drop like flies one by one after the will reading declares that nobody gets anything and soon Ernest and Cyd are trying to work out who the killer is and how they can get the hell out of there. It is easy to see why the film was compared heavily to the early Carry On film, it stared four of their usual players and the humour was quite close but the similarities are limited. Besides, the humour of the Carry On films was largely down to the regulars, What a Carve Up! is a Sid James/Kenneth Connor film first and foremost. At one stage in the film the revealed murderer threatens to feed the surviving players to a pack of starving mongrels. 'Oh, blimey', smirks Syd, 'we're going to the dogs'. This sort of humour will either appeal to you or not, personally it is the stuff I was brought up on and I love and cherish it. The only thing that really dates it for me was the uncredited Adam Faith cameo. I know who Adam Faith was but I’m sure many kids today will have no idea. Other than that, it’s a great two-man show, with a fantastic supporting cast and plenty of wise-cracks. I love it.