Rotten to the Core ** (1965, Anton Rodgers, Charlotte Rampling, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Griffith, Dudley Sutton, James Beckett) – Classic Movie Review 7584

The 1965 British comedy Rotten to the Core (aka Rotten to the Corps) is amusing enough, with some good laughs, though it is essentially an ordinary, old-fashioned heist-thriller comedy from the Boulting Bothers, greatly helped out by its vintage comedy cast, fortunately.

Anton Rodgers stars as a master criminal called The Duke, who recruits newly released prison lags Lenny the Dip, Jelly Knight and Scapa Flood (Kenneth Griffith, Dudley Sutton and James Beckett) to snatch soldiers’ wages. They expect The Duke to have their stash ready, but Duke’s girlfriend Sara (Charlotte Rampling) tells them he is dead and the money gone on his health care.

Rotten to the Core is funny when it sticks to the robbery, but the contrived plot has The Duke establishing a fake health clinic (the Hope Springs Nature Clinic) as a cover for the local villains, an idea that turns out to be a comedy cul-de-sac.

Rotten to the Core is amusingly played, however, by Rodgers (in the Peter Sellers-style role, Rodgers actually replaced Sellers), Griffith, Sutton and Beckett, and Eric Sykes and Thorley Walters as bumbling detectives William Hunt and Chief Constable Preston. You do not expect to find posh Charlotte Rampling in this company, though, as Sara Capell, Duke’s girlfriend. Rampling’s dialogue had to be dubbed.

Also in the cast are Ian Bannen as Lieutenant Percy Vine, Avis Bunnage as Countess de Wett, Victor Maddern as Anxious O’Toole, Raymond Huntley, Ian Wilson as Chopper Parsons, Richard Coleman, Barbara Everest, Cameron Hall, Basil Dignam, Robert Brice, Neil Hallett, John Baker, Frank Jarvis, Dandy Nichols, Lockwood West, Tony Quinn, Fred Wood, Brian Worth, Arthur Skinner as Nick the Bible, and Kenneth Dight as Dirty Bertie. John Boulting has a director cameo as Tube Traveller.

Rotten to the Core (Rotten to the Corps) is directed by John Boulting, runs 90 minutes, is made by Tudor Productions, Charter Film Productions and Boulting Productions, is released by British Lion and Cinema V, is written by John Warren (writer), Len Heath (idea, story and screenplay), Jeffrey Dell (story and screenplay) and Roy Boulting (story and screenplay), is shot in black and white by Freddie Young, is produced by Roy Boulting, is scored by Michael Dress and is designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

It was made at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7584

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