Lucky Jim (1957)
Directed by John Boulting

Film Review

After satisfactory pillorying two of Britain's age old institutions, the army and the legal profession, in Private's Progress (1956) and Brothers in Law (1957), the Boulting brothers directed their satirical gaze towards another, academia, for the third of their successful film comedies.  Freely adapted from Kingsley Amis's best-selling novel of the same title, Lucky Jim offers up another abundant helping of comic hijinks, with the Boultings' main star Ian Carmichael perfectly chosen to play the accident-prone, anti-establishment title character. 

With Terry-Thomas providing comedy back-up as he had done (superbly) in the previous Boulting comedies, and Hugh Griffith revelling in the part of Jim's heavily eyebrow-endowed nemesis Professor Welch, Lucky Jim proves to be a boisterous comedy with plenty of charm, although its uneven episodic structure prevents it from having the polish of the Boultings' previous films.  The film's main flaw is that it lacks the satirical bite of Amis's book and ends up as little more than a series of slapstick situations, often with a dud punchline that is hardly worth waiting for.  For those not familiar with the novel that inspired it, Lucky Jim is an engaging enough romp, but it somewhat misses the point that Amis had in mind.

Film Synopsis

Jim Dixon, a young history professor, is approaching the end of his year-long contract at a typical British redbrick university.  He knows his superior, Professor Welch, does not approve of his modern teaching methods and doubts if he will be offered a permanent position.  Jim is taken aback when Welch asks him to give the memorial lecture and invites him to attend a party at his house.  Eager to make a good impression, Jim soon finds himself a fish out of water in Welch's house, and one calamitous situation leads to another.  He soon manages to get on the wrong side of Welch's son Bertrand, a pretentious modern writer, and falls hopelessly in love with the latter's Canadian girlfriend, Christine...