Just My Luck | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Paddy Carstairs |
Written by | Peter Cusick Alfred Shaughnessy Peter Blackmore |
Produced by | Earl St. John Hugh Stewart |
Starring | Norman Wisdom Margaret Rutherford Jill Dixon Leslie Phillips |
Cinematography | Jack E. Cox |
Edited by | Roger Cherrill |
Music by | Philip Green |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Rank Film Distributors |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Just My Luck is a 1957 British sports comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Norman Wisdom, Margaret Rutherford, Jill Dixon and Leslie Phillips.[1]
Norman Hackett is employed in a jeweller's workshop and is innocently preoccupied with dreaming of meeting the window dresser in the shop across the street from his workplace. He wants to purchase a diamond pendant for her and, after persuasion, gambles a pound on a six-horse accumulator at the Goodwood races. The bookmaker grows concerned when it appears Hackett, after winning on the first five races, could win over £16,000.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios near London with sets designed by the art director Ernest Archer.
Kinematograph Weekly listed it as being "in the money" at the British box office in 1958.[2]
Monthly Film Bulletin said "With a good script and firm, imaginative direction, Norman Wisdom might still be able to make an individual contribution to British comedy. This however is a rather thin "yes-it-is-no-it-isn't" affair, which shows little real appreciation of Wisdom's characteristic qualities."[3]
Leslie Halliwell said: "Flat star vehicle."[4]
According to BFI Screenonline, "Just My Luck is not a piece of comedic genius, nor even the best of Wisdom's films, but it's an amiable, well-constructed piece that recalls a gentler age".[5]
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "good", writing: "Pleasant Wisdom comedy, if hardly tailored to his talents."[6]