Lucky Stiff, based on a stage play and directed by Christopher Ashley starts well with toe-tapping music playing over cute animated credits. The introductory scenes evoke a beige 1970s London where we meet downtrodden Harry Witherspoon (played by Dominic Marsh), a salesman in a shoe shop. A musical, the first song hits as Harry is doing a Friday night inventory – the transition to singing achieved well as he sorts boxes of shoes and sings of the adventures he imagines the shoes taking. As he leaves work animated dogs appear at the edges of the screen, preparing us for the cartoon interludes which come throughout the film. These take care of the otherwise big-budget moments and link the different parts of the film together coherently.
Harry is lifted out of his shoe shop existence by a telegram with exciting news. An American uncle he has never seen has left him $6 million. Of course there is a catch. The old fellow – though dead – wants to be flown to Monte Carlo and taken to various sights and experiences. If Harry doesn’t complete these tasks perfectly then he loses the money and it goes to an old dogs’ home in Brooklyn.
To further complicate the plot, Rita (the mistress of the dead man) believes she should have the money and heads over to Monaco to get her hands on it. She brings along her brother, played by comedy expert Jason Alexander, as well as her blindness which is vital to the plot. The dogs’ charity also send someone to spy on Harry, hoping that he will not stick to the exact terms of the will and thereby forfeit the inheritance.
So far things are set up for a musical farce which could be amusing. But the film peaks early in the scenes and songs of a London boarding house presided over by Jayne Houdyshell’s nosy landlady. Once the characters leave England and America the film is too much of a tasteless journey with a taxidermied human corpse across Europe and around Monaco.
Farce depends on its events being at least possible, but in Lucky Stiff the whole set up is too entirely unlikely to be funny. Much plot revolves around Rita never having her glasses at the vital moments whilst being so blind without them she can’t tell one man from another.
Dominic Marsh and the Dog charity’s investigator (Nikki James) are a pleasant partnership, and the regular songs bring fun to the nonsensical plot. The Seventies fashions are well recreated and the animations add charm. The problem is the plot depends on too many very far-fetched elements and the central idea is both too macabre and too unlikely.
Verdict – Not as fun as it sounds.
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