Seymour Hicks' elderly sons think he is losing it at 62. He lives in Rome, instead of the ancestral champagne estates, has a mistress and has squandered a third of his fortune. They conspire with his mother to trap him on the estate with them as guardians. Little do they know the reality: he is married to Claire Luce, who thinks him 45 and they have a six- month-old son.
It's an amusing situation and Seymour Hicks -- best remembered these days for playing Scrooge for forty years on the stage and twice on film -- plays it to the hilt, full of twitches, while Miss Luce plays a veddy English Sicilian girl. The standout performance is Eva Moore as Hicks' mother.
It's a three-act stage comedy, opened out with some tracking shots and you may downgrade it slightly for that. However, this cut-glass farce is played impeccably by practiced hands and kept me laughing when I first saw it (when I was 62).
It's an amusing situation and Seymour Hicks -- best remembered these days for playing Scrooge for forty years on the stage and twice on film -- plays it to the hilt, full of twitches, while Miss Luce plays a veddy English Sicilian girl. The standout performance is Eva Moore as Hicks' mother.
It's a three-act stage comedy, opened out with some tracking shots and you may downgrade it slightly for that. However, this cut-glass farce is played impeccably by practiced hands and kept me laughing when I first saw it (when I was 62).