Rotten to the Core

Two people are credited with the 'idea' elaborated by four other writers into the script for this movie; all of which seems rather excessive, given that everything in it has seen long and tedious service in British comedy over the years. Newly out of jail, three moronic crooks (Griffith, Sutton and Beckett) attach themselves to a big army payroll robbery set up by a mastermind (Rodgers). The plan involves establishing a phony nature cure clinic as a cover (comic business about old ladies swigging spa waters liberally laced with gin), is attended by many funny disguises (Eric Sykes's private eye sporting Indian garb, Rodgers as a German general), and ends in farcical disaster with crooks, army and police meeting face to face. Some mildly funny moments, but most of the jokes are laboriously set up and loudly telegraphed (like the comic highlight in which the most moronic crook has his IQ tested, and the computer collapses in a fit of grumbling despair).