Dry Rot

The biggest problem with this movie is the run time. It's almost two hours long and the 'Three Stooges' impersonations get tiresome after the halfway mark.

But what lifts this up is the rather excellent script. The screenplay has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments but it's unfortunately buried beneath the overplayed performance of the farcical slapstick scenes.

The casting of the characters also lifts this fim... especially Sid James who is a joy to watch on film regardless of what he does or who he is... and here, he is 'Flash Harry!'

Despite a long career, Ronald Shiner is too old to play his part here... and Brian Rix was just starting out on his journey to stardom. However, the satellite characters keep this flick moving along. Brilliant Michael Shepley and Joan Haythorne as Colonel Wagstaff and his detached wife, Joan Sims as Beth the cleaner and there are others.

But like I say, it's just too long and even a 9-year-old boy eventually has to say that enough is enough when it comes to the relentless parade of theatrical slapstick.

Shout your lines, misunderstand everything that is said to you. Lots of cameo appearances of stock British Actors. I guess a lot of this would work better live in a theatre , Dry Rot was a long running London theatre production. But on the big screen it all seems laboured , jokes telegraphed in advance.

A shady, british gang tries to fix a horse race, among other crooked activities. Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix, Sidney James star as Alf, Fred, and Flash, who run the Honest Alf bookmaker. But they are anything but honest! and Danby (Lee Patterson) gets mixed up with them. some slapstick comedy, three stooges... british-style. it all gets silly, but it's light, fluffy fun, not to be taken at all seriously. running gag about the broken stairs. which never seem to get fixed. and Peggy Mount steals the show as the loud, annoying Sergeant Fire. some clever wordplay with french. and it's even funnier if you actually speak french. directed by Maurice Elvey. apparently he was a bigshot in the early, silent days of British film-making. and made the very first talking film at the studio. (Gaumont British Films was active 1898-1938) Dry Rot was one of Elvey's last films. it was fun to watch. shown on FilmRise channel.

The storyline revolves around a highly dubious betting scam in horse racing. Enter, Ronald Shiner, playing a bookie, who I was never keen on, because in this film, like so many of his film roles, he is constantly shouting and grinning. His presence on the screen simply grates - and as for Brian Rix, here is once again playing the gormless 'village idiot' character, which is enough to send audiences running to the exit door, long before the film has finished. 'Dry Rot' was a 'popular' farce that ran for many years at the Whitehall Theatre in London, however, it's transfer to the big screen, failed miserably as the dialogue was excruciatingly bad and the slapstick antics were simply cringeworthy. Sid James gives some mild relief in his usual role as a 'dodgy' spiv type character, but even his comedic acting skills can't save this film from being a total dud. 'Dry Rot,' even when it was released in 1961, looked dated, and sadly with the passage of time, it can only be considered a tedious museum piece.

Three not-too-bright bookies -- Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix and Sidney James -- decide to fix a race. They get a terrible horse and set it up to be a long shot, to bring in the punters, and lose. While waiting for the race, they set up in a house run by Michael Sheply and Joan Haythorne. The house is falling apart with dry rot, and supplied with many secret passages, as well as young lovers, a maid-of-all-work played by Joan Sims, and French farceur Christian Duvaleix, with frequent visits by policewoman Peggy Mount.

Director Maurice Elvey is completely out of his depth. I regret to say this, because I am fond of a lot of his work, but there are too many experts in farce pulling in all sorts of directions -- not to mention the horse, who pops up at the most inconvenient moment. For farce to work well, it has to run like clockwork, with a plot that seems to run out of control, until the finale, when everything comes together. That doesn't happen here. Instead, there are dangling plots -- we abandon the young lovers at the racetrack -- for a chaotic chase by the police of the three bookies atop a ladder on a firewagon driven by Duvaleix. The story falls apart in the need for yet one more laugh. It's a pity for such a talented cast and crew.