Thursday 13 December 2018

Brothers in Law (1956, released 1957 Roy Boulting)

The legal milieu (difficulties of newbie barrister - bless them!) seems true, probably because it's based on a 1955 comic novel of the same name by Henry Cecil, a former barrister and High Court judge. The screenplay's by Frank Harvey, Jeffrey Dell and Roy Boulting.

I've become a real fan of these fifties Boulting Bros. films: Private's Progress, Lucky Jim, I'm All Right Jack, Carlton Browne of the F.O., Suspect (biological warfare thriller), Heaven's Above. My favourite of these genre pictures is nothing to do with them - School for Scoundrels - but many of the same faces appear, and that's partly why they're so enjoyable - precisely because we have Ian Carmichael, Terry Thomas, Dickie Attenborough, Jill Adams, Irene Handl, Miles Malleson, Peter Sellars, Nicholas Parsons, John Le Mesurier, Kynaston Reeves etc.

This film is distinguished by an out-of-character performance from Terry Thomas as a criminal who knows the law better than the barrister. Interestingly Dickie gets a higher billing than Carmichael.

Tudor Productions / Charter Film. For more info - and Jill Adams' legs - see here.

Carmichael is about as good at golf as I would be

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