This delicious black comedy starts off with some delightfully funny views of bizarre deaths, all men who were part of an "tontine" (insurance bequest) where only the last surviving will receive any cash. Decades go by (as this was given to each of them when they were young boys) and now only two of the men, ironically brothers, survive. With one (John Mills) on his deathbed, the other (Ralph Richardson), a delightfully senile old codger, is out of town, chewing the ear off of anyone he can revel with his plethora of useless knowledge. Mill's son (Michael Caine) is a decent chap, a promising doctor, while Redgrave's wards, nephews Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, come up with a scheme to get their hands on the money when Richardson goes missing. Visiting his uncle (whom he hasn't seen in years), Caine falls in love with his cousin (Nanette Newman), while Cook and Moore try to pass off another corpse as their uncle, assuming that Mills has already croaked. This leads to a hysterical chase at the end, sort of a British early 1900's version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", with a bit of Monty Python and Benny Hill thrown in.

You'll delight at the ensemble cast here, which also includes Peter Sellers in one of his zanier roles as the quack doctor utilized to sign a death certificate for Redgrave, who gets the best lines in the film and is extremely funny. A delightful chase of horse-drawn funeral home carriages includes a ride through a band playing ragtime which has to change to somber funeral music every time these carriages go through the park they are playing in. There's also a Boston Strangler like serial killer and a senile butler, so those who like their comedy's eccentric will enjoy this one to the fullest.

John Mills and Ralph Richardson play a pair of elderly brothers in Victorian England who are the last surviving members of a tontine, a form of investment/insurance policy in which a group of people pool funds which are disbursed to the last surviving member. Each of the two brothers wants to be the last surviving member, but more than that, it's their young family members who want their hands on the tontine money. They'll go to great lengths to get at it.

Michael Caine plays Mills' grandson, sutdying to be a doctor and trying to deal with Mills' increasingly parlous finances. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore play two of Richardson's great-nephews, with Nanette Newman being a cousin to them and Caine. She lives with Richardson (who lives next door to Mills), but falls in love with Caine.

There are some funny moments, but some misses too. Peter Sellers is irritating in his two scenes as a corrupt and dissolute doctor, while Wilfrid Lawson is even worse as Mills' butler. Richardson, on the other hand, is a hoot as the old man who engages in trivial small talk that drives everybody else up a wall without his having a clue as to the effect it has.

The quiet little black comedy "The Wrong Box" has a superb cast. Veteran British stage/cinema actors (Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Wilfred Lawson) play with rising stars (Michael Caine, just off "Alfie", and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore from the groundbreaking "Beyond the Fringe" revue). Established comic actors (Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock) give performances that carefully-polished little gems. Even the tiniest "blink and you'll miss 'em" roles are loaded with familiar character actors (Cicely Courtneidge, John Le Mesurier, Thorley Walters &c) rubbing elbows with rising talents (Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, Graham Stark) making the movie a veritable field day for spotters of British humor. The performances in the major roles are all solid. Some of the smaller parts have variable performances: Thorley Walters is delightful, Courtneidge, too overbearing). All the actors seem to realize that they must take this sort of comedy seriously -- mugging kills this sort of humor. The leads (Richardson, Mills, Cook, Moore, Caine, Lawson) are all suitably earnest. Only Nanette Newman (the director's wife) doesn't seem quite up to her part, being a better actress in modern dress; but she's quite pretty enough and she's good enough not to be utterly lost even in this ensemble of extremely talented actors.

The humor is quiet, with a Victorian hush over the proceedings, lending a (perhaps tongue in cheek) funereal respect to its theme of death with laughter. The gentle pace picks up near the end with a chase with hearses and beer wagons, and a climax that gathers all the principles in a cemetery in a satisfying conclusion.

The witty script is filled with little bits that might not register at first (such as the pulse bit, or "Can you speak a little lower" and the peculiar words "unnecessarily mutilated"). Some of the sight gags go askew, but enough of them work to make them worth while. It's not a movie for every taste. Anglophiles and those who appreciate an easy-going humor may find it work a peek. Anyone who loves Peter Sellers has to see his Pratt.