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.
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