Search - I'm All Right Jack on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1959 DVD Release: 01/21/2003 Format: DVD - Black and White,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Edition: Special Collection Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 45 mins Studio: Anchor Bay Members Wishing: 6 Genres: Comedy, Satire, Workplace Comedy

Set in the 1950s in Britain, this award-winning social comedy by director and co-writer John Boulting features Ian Carmichael as the inept Stanley Windrush, a hopeless twit with -- we are to believe -- an Oxford degree. Unlike others in his social circle, Stanley wants to work. When he tries out for jobs in industry with the full expectation of working his way into a management position, he sets off disasters and alienates his interviewers. So his uncle gives him a job in his munitions factory, knowing what an idiot he is, and relying on him to eventually cause a strike (the uncle needs this for his own reasons). Fred Kite (Peter Sellers in a performance that would launch him as an international star) takes Stanley under his wing yet that does not exactly turn out as expected either. Stanley screws up by accidentally being too efficient, and the entire British work force is affected. If one can accept a portrayal of factory workers as shiftless men unwilling to work, and managers as good 'ole boys whose jobs are gained only by networking, then this film will be all the more entertaining. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Ian Carmichael - Stanley Windrush
Peter Sellers - Fred Kite
Peter Sellers - Sir John Kennaway
Terry-Thomas - Maj. Hitchcock
Richard Attenborough - Sidney de Vere Cox
Dennis Price - Bertram Tracepurcel

John Boulting's I'm All Right Jack (1959) is regarded as the peak of the Boulting brothers' output, and with good reason -- the visual and verbal comic conceits pour off of the screen in profusion. From the opening sequence in a nudist colony, and even the opening credits (featuring a rock 'n' roll song co-authored by Ron Goodwin, no less), there's enough to laugh at to make it obligatory to watch this movie more than once; thus, a good home viewing edition is essential, and this DVD just fits that bill. The film-to-video transfer looks as good as any black-and-white movie of its era, a near-perfect mastering of a near-perfect source, the only imperfection being the very slightly low audio level -- The Smallest Show on Earth from the same DVD release cycle sounds better. The 105 minute movie has 26 chapters and a trailer (for a change), and the latter is so fresh in its own right that leaving it out would have been an act of willful neglect. The menu is one of the less inventive in this series, but then one would be so hard put to equal the movie's level of humor, that the producers can be forgiven for that "lapse." ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide