1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Filming locations

4. Reception

5. Awards and nominations

6. References

7. External links

• John Mills
• Ralph Richardson
• Michael Caine
• Peter Cook
• Dudley Moore
• Nanette Newman
• Tony Hancock
• Peter Sellers}}

The cast includes a number of Britain's leading actors and comic actors of the time, including John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers, Irene Handl, Nanette Newman, Wilfrid Lawson, and Tony Hancock. Included in the cast are other actors who later became more well-known, including John Le Mesurier, John Junkin, Leonard Rossiter, Nicholas Parsons, Jeremy Lloyd, Graham Stark, Thorley Walters, Norman Rossington, David Lodge, Juliet Mills and Norman Bird. Cicely Courtneidge also appears, as Salvation Army Major Martha and The Temperance Seven also appear (as themselves).^[3][1]

Plot

In Victorian London, elderly brothers Masterman (Mills) and Joseph Finsbury (Richardson), who live next to each other, are the last surviving members of a tontine, an investment scheme set up 63 years before, in which the last member stands to receive a fortune. Masterman is attended by his unpromising medical student grandson, Michael (Caine), while his greedy cousins Morris (Cook) and John (Moore), who live in Bournemouth, do their best to keep their annoying uncle Joseph alive. Masterman, who hasn't talked to his despised brother in many years, summons Joseph to his "deathbed," intending to kill him so that Michael can get the money.

On the train trip to London, Joseph escapes from his minders, entering a compartment and boring the sole occupant with a litany of trivial facts (something he does with everyone he encounters). His traveling companion later turns out to be the "Bournemouth Strangler." Joseph leaves to smoke a cigarette, leaving behind his coat, which the strangler dons. The train then collides with another one coming in the other direction. In the wreckage, Morris and John find the strangler's mangled body and mistakenly believe it is that of their uncle.

Morris decides to try to hide the body long enough for Masterman to pass away, then claim Joseph died of a heart attack upon hearing the news. Morris and John plot to ship the body to their London home. John, left behind to attend to this task, sends the body in a barrel. However, it is delivered to Masterman's house by mistake. The "wrong" box of the title is concurrently shipped to Masterman's house; it is a crate containing a statue that has the house number partially obscured. Joseph makes his way to London on his own and visits his brother; Masterman attempts to kill his brother a number of times, with Joseph oblivious to the attempts; they separate after quarreling. Meanwhile, Michael meets Joseph's ward, Julia Finsbury (Nanette Newman), and they fall in love.

The containers are mistakenly delivered to the wrong houses. Morris, arriving at Joseph's house in John's absence, sees a delivery wagon just leaving and assumes that his uncle's body has just been delivered. Things become complicated when Michael discovers the contents of the barrel and, after learning of the "altercation" between Masterman and Joseph from family butler Peacock (Wilfrid Lawson), assumes that his grandfather has killed his brother. Michael hides the body in a piano when Julia brings Masterman some broth. That night Michael hires unscrupulous "undertakers" to remove the strangler's body from the piano and dump it into the Thames, but Masterman falls down the staircase and they assume his is the body. Morris observes the activity and gleefully assumes Masterman has died.

Further misunderstandings and antics ensue the next day as the cousins claim that the tontine has been won, Masterman is returned home after being fished out of the river, Morris orders a coffin to remove the mutilated body he thinks is in Joseph's basement, the coffin is delivered to the wrong house, Michael sells the piano not knowing the strangler's body is still in it, the police are involved when the body in the piano is discovered, Masterman is revealed to be quite alive in the misdelivered coffin, a second coffin ordered by Michael arrives, the cousins make off with the tontine money in the second hearse, and the chase that ensues encounters a real funeral procession in which Joseph is participating.

Cast

• John Mills as Masterman Finsbury
• Ralph Richardson as Joseph Finsbury
• Michael Caine as Michael Finsbury
• Peter Cook as Morris Finsbury
• Dudley Moore as John Finsbury
• Nanette Newman as Julia Finsbury
• Peter Sellers as Dr. Pratt
• Tony Hancock as Detective
• Valentine Dyall as Oliver Pike Harmsworth
• Leonard Rossiter as Vyvyan Alistair Montague
• Wilfrid Lawson as Peacock
• Thorley Walters as Lawyer Patience
• Cicely Courtneidge as Major Martha
• Diane Clare as Mercy
• Gerald Sim as First Undertaker
• Irene Handl as Mrs. Hackett
• John Le Mesurier as Dr. Slattery
• Nicholas Parsons as Alan Frazer Scrope
• James Villiers as Sydney Whitcombe Sykes
• Graham Stark as Ian Scott Fife
• Jeremy Lloyd as Brian Allen Harvey
• Peter Graves as Military Officer
• John Junkin as 1st Engine Driver
• Timothy Bateson as Official
• Norman Bird as Spiritual
• Norman Rossington as first hooligan

Filming locations

Reception

In his autobiography What's it all About?, Michael Caine wrote of the movie's reception, that the film "is so British that it met with a gentle success in most places except Britain, where it was a terrible flop. I suppose this was because the film shows us exactly as the world sees us - as eccentric, charming and polite - but the British knew better that they were none of these things, and it embarrassed us."^[3]

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|0061204}}
• {{AllMovie title|55626}}
• {{BritMovie title|The-Wrong-Box_1966}}

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