A Robert Velaise Production for Romulus Films. Not copyrighted in the U.S.A., but a Continental Distributing release. New York opening at the Coronet: 2 April 1963. U.K. release by British Lion: 21 April 1963. Australian release through British Empire Films: 3 October 1963. Sydney opening at the Lyceum. 8,503 feet. 94 minutes. Cut to 91 minutes in the U.S.A. (Available on an excellent ITV DVD).
SYNOPSIS: To the upper-crust customers of his Bond Street dress salon, Monsieur Jules is suave, elegant and impeccable. But behind the plush front and the French accent, he is Pearly Gates, the Cockney kingpin of London's most efficient gang of thieves.
NOTES: Number 16 at British ticket-windows for 1963.
COMMENT: An extremely funny film, for which Penelope Houston (tough editor of Sight & Sound) has, oddly enough, little but praise — praise with which I am only three-quarters in accord. She commends Cliff Owen for his "agile timing". Personally, I found Owen's timing way off, and I was constantly aware that this very funny script would have been even funnier if the direction were more slick.
It is typical of Owen's incompetence that he has allowed Richard Bennett to negate so much of the material with his pedestrian score, and even Miss Houston has to admit "the director doesn't make much of the (Battersea Funfair) setting."
Fortunately, not even Owen's bumbling can overshadow the adroitness of his cast: The stars are in top form, and I was still laughing over John Le Mesurier's impersonation of a good humor man an hour after I'd left the theater. (Incidentally, his name is pronounced "Le" as in French, "Mess-a-ra" to rhyme with "ma" or "car").
OTHER VIEWS: A slightweight cops and robbers idea has been pepped up into a briskly amusing farce thanks to a combo of deft direction, thesping and writing. — "Rich" in Variety.
The latest lark for jolly good felons is "The Wrong Arm of the Law". . . And who should be leading the culprits in this assault on the risibilities, but Peter Sellers, who has a record as long as your arm. Mr. Sellers, you may remember, started his career in comical crime under the able instruction of Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers". . . The snafu that occurs when the criminals and the cops combine their brains and their pretensions to technical know- how makes a wildly comic climax for this film. — Bosley Crowther in The N.Y. Times.
SYNOPSIS: To the upper-crust customers of his Bond Street dress salon, Monsieur Jules is suave, elegant and impeccable. But behind the plush front and the French accent, he is Pearly Gates, the Cockney kingpin of London's most efficient gang of thieves.
NOTES: Number 16 at British ticket-windows for 1963.
COMMENT: An extremely funny film, for which Penelope Houston (tough editor of Sight & Sound) has, oddly enough, little but praise — praise with which I am only three-quarters in accord. She commends Cliff Owen for his "agile timing". Personally, I found Owen's timing way off, and I was constantly aware that this very funny script would have been even funnier if the direction were more slick.
It is typical of Owen's incompetence that he has allowed Richard Bennett to negate so much of the material with his pedestrian score, and even Miss Houston has to admit "the director doesn't make much of the (Battersea Funfair) setting."
Fortunately, not even Owen's bumbling can overshadow the adroitness of his cast: The stars are in top form, and I was still laughing over John Le Mesurier's impersonation of a good humor man an hour after I'd left the theater. (Incidentally, his name is pronounced "Le" as in French, "Mess-a-ra" to rhyme with "ma" or "car").
OTHER VIEWS: A slightweight cops and robbers idea has been pepped up into a briskly amusing farce thanks to a combo of deft direction, thesping and writing. — "Rich" in Variety.
The latest lark for jolly good felons is "The Wrong Arm of the Law". . . And who should be leading the culprits in this assault on the risibilities, but Peter Sellers, who has a record as long as your arm. Mr. Sellers, you may remember, started his career in comical crime under the able instruction of Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers". . . The snafu that occurs when the criminals and the cops combine their brains and their pretensions to technical know- how makes a wildly comic climax for this film. — Bosley Crowther in The N.Y. Times.