Jim Dixon feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with unexciting but neurotic Margaret Peel, a friend of the Professor's. All-in-all, the pub is the only friendly place to be. His misery is completed at a dreadful weekend gathering of the Welch clan by the arrival of son Bertrand. Not so much that Betrand is loud-mouthed and boorish - which he is - but that he has as companion Christine Callaghan, the sort of marvellous and unattainable woman Jim can only dream about.
Acting
Ian Carmichael's barely-contained desperation is masterful.
Writing
Kingsley Amis's acidic dialogue cuts deep.
Direction
Boulting frames embarrassment like horror.
Director
John Boulting
Ian Carmichael
Jim Dixon
Terry-Thomas
Bertrand Welch
Hugh Griffith
Professor Welch
Sharon Acker
Christine Callaghan
Jean Anderson
Mrs. Welch
Maureen Connell
Margaret Peel
Clive Morton
Sir Hector Gore-Urquhart
John Welsh
The Principal (as John Welch)
Reginald Beckwith
University Porter
Kenneth Griffith
Cyril Johns
Jeremy Hawk
Bill Atkinson
Penny Morrell
Miss Wilson
John Cairney
Roberts
Ian Wilson
Glee Singer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film captures postwar British class anxiety — Jim's provincial background marks him as perpetual outsider in academic circles.
Terry-Thomas based his insufferable Bertrand on pretentious art students he'd observed; the fake goatee was his own idea.
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